CHEMICAL CONSTITUTION AND PHARMACOLOGICAL ACTION. 427 



the cells contain. Both substances can be shaken out with chloro- 

 form. He also referred the union of chloroform in the brain to 

 similar fat-like bodies in that organ, as I have done for the color- 

 ing matter of the alkaloids. A basis was thus secured from which to 

 study the action of the above-mentioned substances in the brain. 

 These substances, it will be seen, are most all readily soluble in fats 

 and fat-like bodies, corresponding to their physico-chemical nature. 1 



The conditions, how r ever, were far more complex in the large 

 number of bodies which, like many medicinal substances (e.g., the 

 antipyretics), and the most varied basic substances (among these the 

 alkaloids), phenols, aldehydes, and many others, in contrast to the 

 indifferent bodies, do not seem incapable of combining synthetically 

 with the tissues. In numerous articles Low assumes that most of the 

 bodies in question are able to unite synthetically with constituents 

 of the cell or with the living protoplasm. It is obvious that we must 

 assume the protoplasm to contain many different kinds of atomic 

 groups possessing very strong affinities, and it was certainly very 

 plausible when Low ascribed a leading role in the phenomena of 

 poisoning, to groups so well able to act. His experiments and re- 

 searches lead him to conclude that in the cell it is particularly alde- 

 hyde groups or labile amido groups which play this anchoring or 

 grasping role. According to Low all substances which can combine 

 with these two radicals are poisons for the protoplasm; the greater 

 the affinity the stronger the poisonous action. 



Against this view of a substituting action of the poisons a large 

 number of easily verified facts can be brought forward. If benzalde- 

 hyde and anilin (or phenylhydrazin, etc.) are mixed, the two sub- 

 stances will condense to form a new substance, benzylidenanilin, 

 water separating at the same time. This benzylidenanilin is a single 



1 It is impossible to do more than refer to the great advances made since 

 my address, especially through the labors of Hans Meyer and Overton. iu 

 three studies on the theory of alcohol narcosis (Archiv f expenm. Pathologic 

 1899-1901), Meyer has shown in the most exact manner for a large number 

 of chemical substances that the mode of action of the indifferent narcotics 

 is not dependent on their other chemical properties but is governed exclu- 

 sively by the partition coefficient which determines their distribution among 

 water and certain fat -like substances (brain and nerve fat), H Overton came 

 to the same conclusion regarding the causal relation between solubility in fat 

 and narcotic action. His investigations, \\hich have been gathered together m 

 a, work entitled "Studien iiber die Xarkose," Jena, 1901, dealt especially with 

 vegetable cells and small animals present in the fluid. 



