378 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [may 



activating the molecular oxygen. As a result oxidation cannot take 

 place and disintegration occurs, the cells thereby being asphyxiated. 

 In this connection he makes the statement that a more or less com- 

 plete recovery from narcosis, which may occur even in an oxygen- 

 free medium, is at the cost of the oxygen contained within the living 

 substance, which (on account of the suppression of the oxidation 

 processes) could not be consumed. 



Mansfeld's (i6) view is not essentially different from that of 

 Verworn. He beheves that because the lipoids take up the 

 narcotic, their power to absorb oxygen is decreased. Narcotized 

 cells cannot take up sufficient oxygen for their needs and hence 

 irritability is decreased by lack of oxygen. That narcotics do 

 decrease the ability of olive oil to dissolve oxygen, has been asserted 

 by Hamburger (8) , although objection to his experiments has been 

 made by Winterstein (31). In many cases it is certain that 

 narcosis has nothing to do with absorption of oxygen. Thus 

 Winterstein has observed that on anesthetizing the anaerobic 

 worm Ascaris in absence of oxygen, it comes to rest very quickly 

 under the influence of the anesthetic. 



Experiments by numerous investigators have shown that nar- 

 cosis and decrease of oxidation are not parallel. Warburg (30) 

 has observed that some narcotics decrease the oxidation of the 

 erythrocytes of geese as much as 30-70 per cent. He has also 

 observed, however, that narcotics do not always decrease the con- 

 sumption of oxygen, for he has found that the segmentation of 

 fertilized sea urchin eggs can be inhibited by phenylurethane with- 

 out a perceptible decrease of the consumption of oxygen. Loeb 

 and Wasteneys (14) have obtained similar results with chloral 

 hydrate, chloroform, and alcohol. Nothmann-Zuckerkandl (20) 

 observed that the protoplasmic streaming of plant cells is quickly 

 brought to a standstill by narcotics. Such cells have been shown to 

 be rather insensitive to lack of oxygen, in that the streaming is 

 stopped in the absence of oxygen only after several weeks. 



BtJRKER (4) was of the opinion that because of the great solu- 

 bihty of narcotics in the lipoid of the cells, there is a competition 

 between the lipoids and other substances in the protoplasm for the 

 active oxygen, such that the cells are more or less in a state of 



