Carbon Dioxide From Nerve Fibres in 



Herzen claims that under certain conditions of local narcosis the 

 nerve fibre may give an action current without any muscular con- 

 traction (Wedenshi and Boruttau both deny this), and Ellinson 15 

 recently demonstrated by the use of cinchonamine hydrochloride 

 the absence of negative variations without abolishing the excitability 

 of the nerve, yet evidences are now abundant to indicate that the 

 action current is a normal physiological phenomenon in uninjured 

 tissue expressing the simultaneous activity resulting in a corre- 

 sponding change in the peripheral organ. 16 These facts, therefore, 

 must be taken as showing that as long as a negative variation remains, 

 the nerve is probably excitable; and that the phenomena observed in 

 the isolated nerve could be regarded as identical with that of a nor- 

 mal nerve as far as the passage of a nerve impulse in an isolated 

 nerve fibre is concerned. 



CO 2 PRODUCTION FROM RESTING NERVE 



In this study of the metabolism of the resting nerve, particular 

 care was taken to select those fibres which were free from nerve cells. 

 The work of several investigators 17 seems to indicate that tissue 

 oxidation is primarily concerned with the cell nucleus. Inasmuch 

 as the respiration in the central nervous system is certain 18 and the 

 blood supply to fibres is seemingly scanty, the notion persists among 

 certain biologists that a nerve fibre should not respire since it has 

 no nucleus. In order to test the correctness of such an idea, I have 

 studied quantitatively the output of CO 2 from various lengths of nerve 

 which are known to be free from nerve cells. 19 Here is the result: 



15 ELLINSON: Journal of physiology, 191 1, xlii, p. i. 



16 For further details, see: GOTCH and HORSLEY: Philosophical transactions 

 of the Royal Society, 1891, clxxii, p. 514; BERNSTEIN: Archiv fiir die gesammte 

 Physiologic, 1898, Ixxiii, p. 376; REID and MCDONALD: Journal of physiology, 

 1898-9, xxiii, p. 100; LEWANDOWSKY: Archiv fiir die gesammte Physiologic, 

 1898, Ixxiii, p. 288; ALCOCK and SEEMANN, ibid., 1905, cviii, p. 426. 



17 See SPITZER: Archiv fiir die gesammte Physiologic, 1897, Ixvii, p. 615; 

 M. NUSSBAUN: Archiv fur mikroskopische Anatomic, 1886, xxvi, p. 485; R. S. 

 LILLIE: This Journal, 1902, vii, p. 412. 



18 L. HILL: Quoted from Hulliburton's Chemistry of nerve and muscle, p. 79. 



19 In this connection, I wish to express my indebtedness to Prof. H. H. Donald- 

 son for his kind advice. 



