134 THE ADRENALS AND THE GENERAL OXIDATION PROCESSES. 



since Abelous and Biarnes succeeded in causing oxidation of 

 salicylic aldehyde by means of blood-serum: that is to say, 

 blood absolutely deprived of its corpuscles. 



11. "It is thus possible to say that the blood acts as an 

 oxidizant precisely in the sense indicated by Jaquet: i.e., 

 through the soluble oxidation ferment it contains. In order 

 to induce oxidation by means of Hood, the experiments must be 

 performed under the most favorable circumstances for oxida- 

 tion, either by reducing the blood or by the continuous passage 

 of a current of air. Herein lies the great difference between 

 the results obtained on the one hand by Schmiedeberg and 

 Jaquet, and by Abelous and Biarnes on the other. 



"The experiments that form the original part of the arti- 

 cle were performed with mixtures of organs, or with their 

 extracts (with or without blood), left during a fixed length of 

 time in contact with salicylic aldehyde; then the salicylic acid 

 formed was determined by means of colorimetry with the weak 

 solution of perchloride of iron. The number of experiments 

 performed was twenty-three. 



12. "The next experiments were instituted to show that 

 the oxidizing body is destroyed by boiling, showing it to be a 

 ferment. It is also destroyed by remaining three days in ab- 

 solute alcohol. 



13. "It is important to note that, in a certain number of 

 experiments, the quantity of salicylic acid formed was much 

 less than in others. Many factors certainly influence the results: 

 abbreviation of the digestion period, the individual peculiarities 

 of the animal, its age, its previous diet, the time elapsed since its 

 death, etc. 



14. "A result of these various experiments is to confirm 

 the opinion advanced by Jaquet, that the presence of cellular 

 protoplasm is absolutely superfluous, and that oxidation is much 

 more likely to be caused by a ferment soluble in water and 

 originating in protoplasm, able also to stand a short treat- 

 ment with absolute alcohol, but which, if prolonged, com- 

 pletely destroys it, as in the case of pepsin, for example. 



15. "It is interesting to ascertain now how the oxidation 

 property behaves toward various tissues. Muscular tissue was 

 first examined, because it stands first as to quantity in the 



