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the triplet state. As has been discussed before, the fluorescent light 

 emission of rhodamin is of an orange color while the phosphores- 

 cence is red. It was noticed that the 2,4D changed the light emis- 

 sion from red to orange in all concentrations in which it reduced 

 the lifetime of the excitation. In its presence the rhodamin mole- 

 cule is thus unable to go into the triplet state, or is able to do so 

 only to a smaller extent than in its absence. The 2,4D made the 

 triplet state an improbable one. 



Analogous observ-ations could be made also with riboflavine, 

 in which the fluorescence is greenish-yellow, the phosphorescent 

 emission orange. The experiment showed that 10"* Ai 2,4D turned 

 the color of the light emission of a frozen 0.0001 AI riboflavine 

 solution from orange into greenish-yellow, which color change 

 indicated that the light emission came to a great extent from a 

 singlet. In the phosphoroscope only a red-brown phosphorescent 

 light emission v/as observ^ed which indicated that the green fluores- 

 cence was not a "delayed" one, did not occur because the excita- 

 tions were turned back from a triplet into a singlet, but occurred 

 because they could not go into the triplet. In these tubes the phos- 

 phorescence was stronger than in the control containing riboflavine 

 alone, which indicated that part of the excitation still went into 

 the triplet but this triplet state was rather unstable. 



That hereditary myotonia is, in some way, connected with a de- 

 fective energy supply was also suggested by the observation of 

 Hajdu and the author that 2,4D-dinitro-l-naphthol, which is a 

 strong "quencher" of jB*, aggravates the symptoms of this disease 

 in goats. 



There are observ-ations to indicate that, similarly to the action 

 of 2,4D, the disturbance in hereditary myotonia is not localized 

 to muscle, but is of a more general character. It is known, for in- 

 stance, that myotonic goats are inclined to stillbirth. I also lost a 

 goat in advanced stages of pregnancy without any apparent reason : 

 the animal simply expired. I also have the impression that my 

 goats become smaller from generation to generation though no 



