POST-STIMULANT AND POST-MORTEM ACTIVITY 59 



as to the reality of post-mortem production of heat * 

 an outward expression of katabolic inertia. The 

 uterus, it is well known can, after the death of the 

 mother, contract on the foetus and expel it, so that 

 a living child can be born of a woman dead in the 

 eyes of the law. 



As chemically expressed, this post-mortem kata- 

 bolism is seen in the many tissues (notably liver and 

 kidney) that can reduce alizarine blue to alizarine 

 white, f and soluble Prussian blue to the green or 

 leuco condition, J and also in all those cases of 

 surviving activity of isolated organs or tissues 

 performing chemical transformations in the absence 

 of nutrient fluids tissues excreting CO 2 into an 

 atmosphere of N or H. Similarly, the frog in 

 Pfliiger's experiment in which blood had been 

 replaced by physiological salt solution, and the 

 avascular non-fed muscle excreting in vitro CO 2 into 

 N or H, have katabo ic inertia. 



So, too, glands of various kinds which continue 

 post-mortem in the absence of all stimulation to 

 secrete, are exhibiting katabolic inertia. 



A typical case of this is the avascular liver con- 

 tinuing post-mortem to manufacture the (glycolytic) 

 ferment for the transformation of glycogen to dextrose. 

 Tissue-autolysis is due entirely to katabolic inertia. 



* Tigerstedt, " Text-book of Human Physiology." (London : 

 Apple ton, 1906.) 



f Paul Ehrlich, Das Sauevstoff-Bediirfniss des Organismus. (Berlin : 

 Hirschwald, 1885.) 



1 D. F. Harris and J. C. Irvine, Biochemical Journal, Sept. 1906, 

 and D. F. Harris, Science Progress, April 1907, 



