ANTAGONISM BETWEEN SALTS AND ANESTHETICS 593 



with the initiation of cleavage by the above salts, in spite of its 

 powerful action in suppressing cleavage — a fact, it may inciden- 

 tally be pointed out, indicating once more that this agent differs 

 essentially in its mode of action from the anesthetics. That the 

 normal course of the cleavage process is completely inhibited 

 by anesthetics which only slightly counteract the salt-action prob- 

 ably indicates that a greater degree of resistance must be im- 

 parted to the plasma-membrane to prevent the action of the salt 

 than to suppress cleavage; chloral hydrate and urethane are 

 apparently less able than the alcohols to impart to the membranes 

 the necessary stability or degree of resistance. The case of cyan- 

 ide is different. Cyanide acts by directly inhibiting oxidations^ 

 and arrests cleavage through a quite different means from that 

 exercised by the anesthetics, which appear to act primarily by 

 altering the condition of the plasma-membrane and thus incapac- 

 itating this structure for the exercise of its normal activities. 



Precisely how this effect is produced is undecided and requires 

 further investigation; in some way — as I have shown in the 

 experiments cited above — the presence of definite quantities of 

 many lipoid-solvent anesthetics imparts an increased stability 

 to the colloidal surface-films of cells and to other surface-struc- 

 tures such as cilia. Some change in the physico-chemical rela- 

 tions existing between the lipoid and protein components of the 

 colloidal complex seems thus indicated. It has long been known- 

 that one colloid may exert a stabilizing influence upon another 

 when the two are present together in solution. The lipoids and 

 proteins of the plasma-membrane are possibly interrelated in 

 some such manner;* if so, altering the condition of the lipoids 

 will naturally affect the stability of the colloidal system, and 

 under appropriate conditions* (of temperature, concentration, 

 etc.) will increase it. When this occurs, activities dependent 

 on alterations of the plasma-membrane — especially the effects 

 normally following changes of electrical polarization — are in- 

 hibited. The resulting state of temporary inactivity or irre- 

 sponsiveness — what we call anesthesia or narcosis in irritable 



* The observations of Lepeschkin are of much interest in this connection; cf. 

 KoUoid-Zeitschrift, 1913, Bd. 13, p. 181. 



