ORGANIC POISONS 161 



more complicated manners and combinations corresponding with 

 the complexity of organic compounds. 



Oxidation, which has already been mentioned as a means 

 of destruction of bacterial toxins, is naturally one of the most 

 effective agents in the destruction of simpler organic substances, 

 since the ordinary decomposition of all organic food-stuffs is 

 through oxidation. There are numbers of specific examples of 

 the conversion of a poisonous into a less poisonous or non- 

 poisonous substance by oxidation. All acids of the fatty acid 

 series are oxidized vigorously in the body, eventually into CO 2 

 and H 2 O ; and occasionally pathologically produced oxalic, ace- 

 tic, and lactic acids are destroyed in this way. Uric acid is 

 oxidized vigorously by many organs, as are other members of 

 the purin series, such as caffein and theobromin. Presumably 

 oxidation of organic poisons as well as of food-stuffs is brought 

 about by the oxidizing enzymes of the cells, as shown by 

 Ehrlich's indophenol reaetion, which consists of the oxidation of 

 paraphenylene diamine and a-naphthol, with a resulting syn- 

 thesis. This reaction has been shown by Lillie l to occur prin- 

 cipally in and about the cell nuclei. 



Combination, with or without Preliminary Oxida- 

 tion. Oxidation is also an essential preliminary step to many 

 of the protecting combinations, in which a cell constituent is 

 united to an organic poison. The most important of these com- 

 bining substances are : 



1. Sulphuric Acid. One of the earliest and most impor- 

 tant observations of the protective action of sulphuric acid was 

 made by Baumann and Herter, 2 who showed that phenol is elim- 

 inated as a potassium salt of the sulphuric acid derivative, as 

 follows : 



C 6 H 5 OH + HO - SO 3 K = QjH 5 - SO 3 K + H 2 O, 



a reaction that has been of much practical use in treating phenol 

 poisoning. As phenol and cresols are produced constantly in 

 intestinal decomposition, this reaction is undoubtedly of great 

 service, since the salt formed is relatively harmless. Indol and 

 skatol are similarly detoxicated by being converted into corre- 

 sponding salts, but only after a preliminary oxidation into in- 

 doxyl and skatoxyl, according to the following reaction : 



, 

 C 6 H 4 < CH + O = C 6 H 4 X 



(indol) (indoxyl) 



1 Loc. cit. * Zeit. physiol. Chem., 1877 (1), 247. 



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