230 ANAEROBIC }f/'JTAfU>fJ8M 



vertebrates. They are not yet sufficiently advanced, how- 

 ever, to give a uniform picture, as will appear from the 

 following account. 



Keilin (1925) showed, by examination of living Gal- 

 leria by means of a micro-spectroscope, that the absorp- 

 tion bands of reduced cytochrome appear very rapidly 

 when nitrogen or coal gas is passed over the animals. 



Monier (1936) studied the behavior of glutathione 

 during the a.iphyxiation of Sipunculus nudus and Car- 

 cinus moenas. In the blood of aerobically kept sipuncu- 

 lids the oxidized and the reduced glutathione were in the 

 ratio of about 2 :1, while in worms kept for 15 hours in a 

 vessel with sea water, without contact with the atmos- 

 phere, only reduced glutathione was found. The latter 

 had increased to about ten times its original value, but 

 there is no information as to Which organs furnished the 

 additional amounts. In Carcinus, asphyxiated in a sim- 

 ilar manner for the same length of time, the oxidized glu- 

 tathione did not disappear completely from the gills or 

 the hepato-pancreas ; in this latter organ a distinct in- 

 crease in reduced glutathione was observed, but none in 

 the gills. 



Gourevitch (1937) found relatively large quantities of 

 flavine, a typical oxidation-reduction enzyme of anaero- 

 bic cells (4 to 12.5 gammas per g. of fresh tissue) in Fas- 

 ciola, Ascaris and in the larvae of GasteropMlus, all an- 

 imals that readily withstand oxygen deprivation. But 

 as much, or even more, (up to 25 gammas per g. of tissue) 

 was encountered in some typical aerobic organisms, like 

 the earthworm, some coleoptera and lepidoptera. There- 

 fore there seems to be no parallelism between flavine con- 

 tent and the ability to live anaerobically. 



Ballentine (1940) observed that the eggs of Arhacia, 

 Chaetopterus, Mactra and Ostrea are able to reduce fer- 

 ricyanide under anaerobic conditions. This indicates 



