GLYCOLYSIS. 387 



occur. Recently VAHLEN 1 found a substance in the pancreas which 

 accelerates catalytically the alcoholic fermentation of sugar by yeast. 



That lactic acid can be an intermediary step in "the destruction of 

 sugar in the animal body follows from the several circumstances as to 

 the origin of lactic acid, which will be mentioned in a subsequent chap- 

 ter (XI, Muscle,) and also the observation of A. R. MANDEL and LUSK 2 

 on the relation of lactic acid to diabetes. These experimenters showed 

 after phosphorus poisoning in dogs, that the blood and urine con- 

 tained abundance of lactic acid, and on producing phlorhizin-diabetes 

 it disappeared from these fluids, and also that phosphorus poisoning 

 does not cause a lactic acid formation in dogs with phlorhizin-diabetes. 

 Although it is difficult to give a satisfactory interpretation of these 

 observations, it is still very probable that in the elimination of the sugar 

 in phlorhizin-diabetes a mother substance of the lactic acid is lost. 



We are not agreed as to the ways and means which bring about 

 the so-called glycolysis, and another disputed question is whether the 

 glycolysis can be produced by one organ or only by the combined action 

 of several organs. COHNHEIM found that a cell-free fluid can be 

 obtained from a mixture of pancreas and muscle, which destroys dextrose, 

 while the pancreas alone does not have this action, and the muscle only 

 to a slight extent. The pancreas does not contain, according to COHN- 

 HEIM, a glycolytic enzyme, but a substance resistant to boiling tem- 

 peratures, which is soluble in water and alcohol, and which, like an 

 amboceptor, activates a glycolytic proenzyme which exists in the 

 muscle fluid, but which is inactive alone and which retards glycolysis 

 when it exists in excess. DE MEYER 3 holds an almost similar view, but 

 with this exception, that he does not consider the activating substance 

 coming from the muscles, but from the leucocytes. This proenzyme is- 

 activated by the internal secretion of the pancreas. 



The findings of COHNHEIM have not been fully confirmed by other 

 investigators. 4 Certain of these investigators come to more or less sim- 

 ilar conclusions while, on the contrary, others cannot substantiate his 

 deductions at all, and for the present our knowledge of the mode of 

 action of the pancreas in the sugar metabolism in the animal body is very 

 meager and incomplete. 



1 Zeitschr. f. physiol. Chem., 59. 



2 Amer. Journ. of Physiol., 16. 



3 Cohnheim, Zeitschr. f. physiol. Chem., 39, 42, 43, and 47; De Meyer, Arch, intern, 

 de Physiol., 2, cited from Biochem. Centralbl., 3, and Centralbl. f. Physiol., 20. 



4 Stocklasa and collaborators, Centralbl. f. Physiol., 17, and Ber. d. d. chem. 

 Gesellsch., 36 and 38; Feinschmidt, Hofmeister's Beitrage, 4; Hirsch, ibid.', Claus and 

 Embden, ibid., 6; Arnheim and Rosenbaum, Zeitschr. f. physiol. Chem., 40; Braun- 

 stein, Zeitschr. f. klin. Med., 51. 



