ENZYMES. 45 



It is at present impossible to state what part autolytic processes 

 take in life under physiological conditions, and we can have only con- 

 jectures on this subject. In the autolysis of a removed organ or of one 

 through which the blood is not flowing, the conditions in many ways are 

 quite different from the conditions in life. The products which appear 

 after weeks or months of autolysis, sometimes in very small quantities, 

 do not give any clue to the nature of the vital processes, and conclusions 

 must be drawn very carefully from these results. 



For the present it is impossible to judge of the importance of the 

 enzymes active in autolysis for physiological conditions, but this does 

 not exclude the possibility that in normal cell life the enzymes play a 

 very important role. Numerous observations show this to be true, and 

 we tend more and more toward the view that the chemical transforma- 

 tions in the living cells are brought about by enzymes, and that these 

 latter are to be considered as the chemical tools of the cells (HOFMEISTEB 

 and others. 1 ). 



From this standpoint the enzymes are of especial interest because 

 to-day it is the general belief that nearly all chemical processes of great 

 importance do not occur in the animal fluids, but on the contrary in the 

 cells, which are the real chemical workshops of the organism. It is also 

 chiefly the cells, which by their more or less active efficiency regulate 

 the extent of the chemical processes and thereby also the intensity of 

 the general metabolism. The following will be given as special examples 

 of the action of such enzymes under pathological conditions. The 

 changes of the liver and blood in acute phosphorus intoxication and 

 in acute yellow atrophy of the liver, where we find, in the urine, the 

 enzymotic decomposition products of the proteins. 2 Another example 

 is the solution of pneumonic infiltrations by the enzymes of the migrated 

 and inclosed leucocytes as studied by FR. MULLER, S and this is at the same 

 time an example of heterolysis, i.e., of a solution or a destruction in an 

 organ by enzymes not belonging therein but introduced from without. 

 An autolysis, although not very marked, occurs in those organs or parts 

 of organs which have not been normally nourished because of a dis- 

 turbance in the circulation, and they are gradually consumed by this 

 action. The part injured undergoes solution, while the healthy part 

 remains unattacked. By this solvent action as well as by the forma- 

 tion of bactericidal bodies, as observed by CoNRADi, 4 and of antitoxins 



1 F. Hofmeister, Die chemische Organisation der Zelle, Braunschweig, 1901. 



2 Jacoby, Zeitschr. f. physiol. Chem., 30, 174 (1900). 



3 Verhandl. d. naturforsch. Gesellsch. zu Basel, 1901. See also O. Simon, Deutsch 

 Arch. f. klin. Med., 1901. 



4 Hofmeister's Beitrage, 1. 



