1904.] Relation of Chloroform to Blood. 59 



This conclusion is in agreement with that arrived at by previous 

 ^observers, Hermann, Schmiedeberg and others, to the effect that 

 chloroform combines with the lecithin of blood. It is also in harmony 

 with the modern theory of anaesthesia as presented by recent writers 

 (H. Mayer, Overtoil, H. Meyer)* to the effect that the action of 

 anaesthetics upon the several tissues and fluids of the body depends 

 upon a " coefficient of partage, in which the affinity between anaesthetic 

 And fatty matter is the principally effective factor." 



From the foregoing observations (which should properly have been 

 published by the Special Chloroform Committee in July of last year) it 

 is clear that the conclusions are substantially identical with that arrived 

 at by Moore and Roaf, viz., that the absorption of chloroform vapour 

 is greater by blood than by saline, and that blood acts as chloroform 

 carrier to the tissues just as it acts as oxygen carrier. It is a minor 

 point of difference between the two independently presented conclu- 

 sions, that whereas Moore and Eoaf find no proof of any special 

 combination between chloroform and " lipoids " as previously urged by 

 German observers, we have in the report of our experiments admitted 

 that the combination which certainly takes place between chloroform 

 -and protoplasm may possibly be accounted for on the lipoid theory. 



But the question whether chloroform can combine with all protoplasm 

 indifferently, or with its fatty constituents (lecithin, cholesterin) more 

 particularly is a subsidiary issue, in respect of which neither the 

 observations of Moore and Roaf, nor our own, contain any decisive 

 evidence. On the one hand we are in presence of the fact that all 

 protoplasm is subject to the influence of chloroform, on the other with 

 the fact that all protoplasm is associated with fatty constituents of 

 which lecithin is the most universal representative. Lecithin is widely 

 distributed in vegetable as well as in animal protoplasm ; it is present 

 in blood-serum, which, as shown by Moore and Roaf, has a solvent 

 power towards chloroform not far short of that possessed by blood. 



* Scbmiedeberg, 'Grundriss der Pharmakologie ' ; Overton, ' Pfliiger's Archiv' ; 

 H. Meyer, ' Arch. f. exp. Path. u. Pharm., vol. 42, p. 109, 1899 ; Hober, ' Physikal- 

 ische Chemie'; Gottlieb, 'Ergebnisse der Physiologic,' " Theorie de Narkose," 

 Tol. 2, p. 666, 1902. 



