200 life's beginning on the earth 



battery, but by certain other substances, real poisons such 

 as strychnine. 



This line of thought leads to the surprising conclusion 

 that poisons may kill by an interference with the electrical 

 mechanism through which the functioning of our nervous 

 system, and hence our life, is maintained. It is certain 

 that strong electrical currents, when passing through our 

 body, interfere with the same electrical mechanism, and 

 that this interference is the cause of their deadly action. 

 Poisons would therefore seem to kill in the same manner as 

 an electrical shock. This conclusion seems to be particu- 

 larly applicable to those poisons which act on the brain and 

 nerves (page 181). Evidence in favor of this explanation 

 can be offered by demonstrating that a poison like strych- 

 nine will act upon the charge of one of those experimental 

 batteries, composed of fat layers, that resemble the electric 

 organ of the electric eel. Experiments by this writer have 

 shown that this is the case ; and that the amount of strych- 

 nine or another similar poison, necessary for such a purely 

 electrical action, is quite small. A minute amount of 

 strychnine is sufficient also for a fatal action in men or 

 animals. 



But it would not be wise to draw too sweeping conclu- 

 sions from these analogies. Undoubtedly there are many 

 other possibilities of explaining poisoning, for instance 

 through an interference with the actions of the enzymes, 

 those chemical activators which are in reality the essence 

 of life. This latter explanation is at present preferred by 

 most scientists. 



