726 THE CEREBELLUM 



Overton 1 that the narcosis depends upon the solubility of the narcotic 

 agent in fats and oils. In general, those substances act as narcotics 

 which are more readily soluble in fat-like media than in water; in 

 fact, the power of these agents is directly proportional to their fat 

 solubility. It has also been established that their action is produced 

 by the free molecule and not by the products of their decomposition. 

 Thus, the esters of the fatty acids narcotize only while they remain 

 unsaponified. They lose this property as soon as they are split 

 into the corresponding alcohol and fatty acid. This characteristic 

 effect upon the nervous system is made possible by their going into 

 solution with the fat-like constituents of this tissue, the lipoids. 

 As nervous tissue contains an especially large amount of these sub- 

 stances, the narcotics must be capable of entering this tissue much 

 more easily than others. 



Having shown that the accumulation of the narcotics in the nervous 

 tissue is due to their solution-affinity for the lipoids, we may go one 

 step farther and state that the essential cause of narcotic action is the 

 solution-reaction between them and the lipoids. In this connection, 

 it might be mentioned that Hober 2 has found the colloidal state of 

 the cells to be changed during narcosis, and that Winterstein 3 has 

 proved that narcotized tissue ceases to take up oxygen even when 

 made to produce work in a superfluity of this gas. The evidence tends 

 to show, however, that while the inhibition of oxidation constitutes 

 a factor in narcosis, it is not actually its cause. 



1 Studien tiber die Narkose, Jena, 1901. 



2 Zeitschr. fur allg. Physiol., xi, 1910, 173. 

 Ibid., vi, 1907, 315. 



