546 



PHYSIOLOGY. 



were substances more or less poisonous in their 

 action, and it was very probable that a great 

 many of these toxic products of our intestinal 

 flora had still to be ascertained. There was reason 

 to affirm that the poisons produced by the intes- 

 tinal microbes played a considerable part in caus- 

 ing many and various maladies. 



Muscle serum, although it is taken normally 

 into the stomach as a food substance, has been 

 found by M. C. Richet to produce strong toxic 

 effects when injected under the skin. These effects 

 do not follow when the serum has been coagulated 

 by heat. 



A microscopical examination has been made by 

 Dr. R. J. A. Berry for the purpose of determin- 

 ing what, if any, analogy exists between the apex 

 of the caecum of the lower animals and its equiva- 

 lent, the vermiform appendix in man. Three 

 types of animals were selected the rabbit, the 

 cat, and the pigeon. In them a marked accumula- 

 tion of lymphoid tissue was found at the csecal 

 apex, which reached its maximum development in 

 the cat within one week after birth. From these 

 developments, combined with the comparison of 

 the corresponding arrangements in other animals, 

 the conclusion was reached that lymphoid tissue 

 is the characteristic feature of the csecal apex, 

 the vermiform appendix in man being repre- 

 sented in the vertebrate kingdom by a mass of 

 lymphoid tissue, situated more frequently at the 

 csecal apex; that as the vertebral scale is 

 ascended, the lymphoid tissue tends to be col- 

 lected into a specially differentiated portion of 

 the intestinal canal, the vermiform appendix; 

 and that this appendix in man is not therefore 

 a vestigial structure, but is a specialized part of 

 the alimentary canal. 



The conclusion is drawn from analytical studies 

 by T. B. Osborne and E. F. Campbell that the 

 protein of egg yolk is principally a lecithin com- 

 pound, soluble in salt solutions, and in its be- 

 havior resembling a globulin. Preparations of 

 crystallized egg albumen obtained and described 

 by T. B. Osborne indicated that other proteid 

 bodies are associated with the substance ordi- 

 narily known as ovalbumen. The authors have 

 since repeated their work on a larger scale, with 

 confirmation of the earlier observations and the 

 acquisition of a number of facts concerning these 

 and other protein substances. 



Some remarkable analogies have been observed 

 by G. Bredig and K. Ikeda and M. V. Berneck 

 between the behavior of a solution of colloidal 

 platinum and that of the organic enzymes, espe- 

 cially those present in the blood. Among them is 

 the fact that just as minute traces of certain sub- 

 stances inhibit the catalytic action of the enzymes 

 of the blood, so traces of the same or similar 

 substances act as "poisons" to colloidal plat- 

 inum, the quantities necessary being in some 

 cases extremely small. The work of the authors 

 is expected to lead to more quantitative studies 

 of the catalytic action of the enzymes proper, 

 the importance of which in animal and plant 

 physiology is becoming every day more manifest. 



Catalase is the name of a new enzyme of gen- 

 eral occurrence which is described by Dr. Oscar 

 Loew with special reference to the tobacco plant. 

 It possesses the power of producing catalytic de- 

 composition of hydrogen peroxide a decomposi- 

 tion which is probably not produced by any other 

 known enzyme. It appears to exist in a soluble 

 and an insoluble form, which are designated as a 

 catalase and /8 catalase. The former is wholly a 

 compound of the soluble catalase with a nucleo- 

 proteid, while the form is an albumin, and can 

 be liberated by the action oi very dilute alkaline 



media upon the insoluble catalase. The action 

 of this enzyme appears to be an oxidizing one. 

 The most characteristic reaction studied in this 

 direction has been its rapid oxidation of hydro- 

 quinone to quinone. Numerous tests have estab- 

 lished the general occurrence of catalase in the 

 vegetable kingdom. No living plant or vegetable 

 organ was found free from it, some plants con- 

 taining more of the soluble, others more of the 

 insoluble form. In the animal kingdom it also 

 appears to be widely distributed, having been 

 found in aqueous extracts of spleen, pancreas, 

 liver, kidney, brain, muscle, and blood serum. 

 Infusoria, insects, worms, and mollusks were also 

 examined, with positive results. 



Existing methods of obtaining actual intercel- 

 lular tissue are criticized by Sydney Rowland, of 

 London, as having a common defect of principle 

 in that they grind by attrition. The most suc- 

 cessful of them is apparently that of Buchner, who 

 has succeeded in obtaining the intracellular juice 

 of yeast-cells. The details of it have not been pub- 

 lished. A method described by Mr. Rowland de- 

 pends on percussion. It is first necessary to reduce 

 the size of the organized elements of the tissue or 

 cell to that of the smallest elements. This is ac- 

 complished by submitting the minced organ to the 

 violent and rapidly succeeding impacts of particles 

 of some solid substance harder than the tissue to 

 be ruptured, and of a comparable size with its indi- 

 vidual elements. The mass of material thus result- 

 ing is a paste consisting of minute particles of pro- 

 teid or other constituent material, suspended in 

 the liquefied intracellular substances, and mixed 

 with more or less blood products. The separation 

 of the solids from the liquids of this mass may be 

 produced by centrifugalizing or by filtering. Both 

 of these means are, however, slow and uncertain. 

 A method of interstitial filtration similar to the 

 so-called filter-pressing operation of many indus- 

 trial processes gives a perfectly clear solution. 

 The material contains the actual intracellular 

 liquid substances, and if the disintegrating pro- 

 cesses are carried on at such a temperature as 

 will arrest chemical action in liquid air, for ex- 

 ample it is difficult to see what (other than 

 physical) differences can exist between such a 

 juice and the living liquid substance. Several 

 ways of using the method thus generalized are 

 indicated by the author. It can be adopted for 

 bacteria, glands, organs, yeast, and even for so 

 refractory a material as lead. Mr. Rowland de- 

 scribes the modification most convenient for 

 glands and organs, and his apparatus adapted to 

 them. It consists of a disintegrator, a vertical 

 revolving steel spindle with horizontal vanes or 

 paddles overlapping one another by 90, and a 

 filter press, in which the juice is expressed from a 

 mixture of the disintegrated mass and KieselguJtr. 



The formation of " skin " or film in warming 

 milk has been studied by R. Jamieson and A. J. 

 Hertz, of Oxford, who find that it is not a pe- 

 culiar property of caseinogen or lactalbumin, 

 as a similar film is produced on warming any 

 proteid solution containing emulsified fat or 

 paraffin; that the film is probably formed of 

 unchanged dried proteid in the case of non- 

 coagulable proteids, and in that of coagulable 

 proteids if the temperature is kept below the 

 coagulation point. If the temperature is higher, 

 the film, with the latter, is composed, partly at 

 any rate, of coagulable proteid. Globules of 

 fat or paraffin are entangled in the skin. Drying 

 is an essential condition for the formation of a 

 film. The authors propose the following as a 

 hypothesis to explain these phenomena: Particles 

 suspended in colloid solution are surrounded by 



