450 DAVID H. DOLLEY 



There were thus all grades of activity from many kinds of 

 stimuli, spontaneous, mechanical, chemical and trophic— alone 

 and in various combinations. Yet there was activity and only 

 activity and no depression anatomically apparent. Why the 

 sole effort was directed toward the exclusion of depression will 

 be clear from the later discussion. For the present purpose, 

 any degree of activity whatever was found to make no difference 

 so long as there were enough cells left at rest to measure. 



The one possible discrepancy in the estimation of these experi- 

 ments as uncomplicated by depression as a result of the various 

 operative procedures, as I see it, will be frankly stated. This is 

 the factor of ether anesthesia. While undoubtedly initially 

 exciting, the essential effect of ether must be regarded by analogy 

 in the present state of our knowledge as depressant. Yet in 

 the ordinary anesthesia of experiment, however a relatively 

 short one, there has never been any anatomical indication of 

 frank depression, but on the contrary what effect there might 

 have been was only part of a general excitation. Nevertheless 

 such an effect of depression would reasonably be expected on 

 physiological grounds to have appeared at some time, a lack of 

 harmony that I am unable to explain. However, it has been 

 the invariable finding for various types of depressants that they 

 lead slowly to frank anatomical exhibition. This lets out the 

 ether here as a theoretical factor of disturbance of the quantitative 

 status of the resting cell as such. So far, a single large dose in 

 the case of the waste products of fatigue and in the case of mor- 

 phine has been ineffectual, save to an almost negligible degree 

 ('14). Repeated and long administrations are required. So 

 the ether is following what appears to be a general rule. This 

 is in direct contrast to activity in which even a small excitatory 

 stimulation produces a measurable result ('09).- It is entirely 

 possible that depressant agents will be shown to accomplish 

 their milder physiological and symptomatic results, their ordinary 

 result as we use them, by hindering intracellular coordination 

 in the same way that has been demonstrated for frank depression 

 ('13 b) and yet to act too superficially to disturb the organic 

 constitution visibly. We have no idea, speaking from the point 



