October 13, 1904] 



jVA TURE 



587 



currents were necessary to evoke any niovenient, and these 

 were of a different character, being direct responses of the 

 muscles. 



Prof. W. H. Thompson read a paper on the metabolism 

 of arginine. If arginine, an important crystalline base 

 ■obtained by the cleavage of proteids, is administered to 

 animals either by injection or with the food, from So per 

 cent, to 90 per cent, of its nitrogen is e.xcreted as urea. In 

 the laboratory only 50 per cent, of the nitrogen can be split 

 olT from arginine as urea, the remainder appearing as 

 ornilhin. Hence in the body the ornithin nitrogen is also 

 i-on\'prted into urea, largely or entirely. 



Prof. A. Kossel (Heidelberg), referring to the structural 

 formula of arginine, pointed out how half of its nitrogen 

 could be split off as urea by a simple hydrolysis, while the 

 remaining moiety required oxidation before it could be 

 obtained in this form. Uakin and he had shown recently 

 that the liver and some other tissues produced a ferment 

 capable of effecting this hydrolysis. Moreover, they had 

 also found another ferment which possessed the power of 

 acting upon this base in an e.\actly similar manner while 

 it was still combined within the molecule of certain of 

 the simple proteids (the protamines). The significance ol 

 these facts is of great importance in view of the wide 

 distribution of arginine' throughout the cell proteids of the 

 body. 



Dr. F. G. Hopkins stated that he had some time 

 previously himself taken by the mouth a mi.xture of the 

 hexone bases, and subsequently watched the hourly elimin- 

 ation of urea. He found that the rate of excretion of urea 

 showed two maxima, the first of which he had ascribed to 

 that part of the N of these bodies which could be obtained 

 in the laboratory as urea, and the second maximum to the 

 remaining N (ornithin, &c.). 



Prof. E. H. Starling read a paper on the relation of 

 trypsinogen to trypsin. Pawlow and his pupils have shown 

 that fresh pancreatic juice, obtained from a pancreatic 

 fistula, possesses no power of digesting proteids, but that 

 after it has been acted upon by intestinal juice it gains 

 that power. He concluded that the intestinal juice contained 

 a ferment (enterokinase) which acted upon the trypsinogen 

 of the fresh pancregjic juice, convening it into trypsin. 

 Against this view French observers have brought forward 

 another, viz. that the interaction of the two secretions is 

 analogous to that of the cytases, and that the trypsinogen 

 can only act upon proteids in the presence of enterokinase. 

 Bayliss and Starling have studied the action of enterokinase 

 upon trypsinogen, and by observing the rate of its action 

 have, by finding that it follows the usual laws of ferment 

 action, brought strong evidence to prove that Pawlow's 

 view is the correct one, and that enterokinase is a " ferment 

 of ferments." They have now further evidence in the same 

 direction. By injecting rabbits with solutions of entero- 

 kinase, they found that an antibody could be produced 

 which, acting upon enterokinase, was able to inhibit its 

 action upon trypsinogen. Although this in itself could not 

 be regarded as definite proof because the facts might bear 

 another interpretation, yet taken in conjunction with the 

 former evidence it was confirmatory of their view. 



Dr. F. A. Griinbaum pointed out that the last evidence 

 brought forward by Prof. Starling did not disprove the 

 view that enterokinase and trypsinoafcn acted in a com- 

 plementary manner to one another, since the result might be 

 readily explained on the assumption that the antibody 

 possessed a relatively greater attraction to the enterokinase 

 than to trypsinogen. 



Dr. W. E. Dixon communicated the results of his experi- 

 ments upon the action of alcohol upon the heart and circu- 

 lation. He pointed out that much of the literature upon 

 the subject was valueless because the experiments had been 

 conducted upon animals already under the influence of 

 an.xsthetics. The previous administration of chloroform or 

 ether entirely abolished the first effects of alcohol. The 

 experiments mu'it therefore be conducted upon un- 

 anaesthetised animals or upon surviving organs. He proved 

 that the first effect of alcohol upon the pulse was a slight 

 acceleration, which he thought was due to an irritative 

 effect of peripheral origin. The first action upon the heart 

 was distinctly a stimulating one, as proved by cardiometer 

 experiments. The effect upon the peripheral blood-vessels 

 was a dilatation of the limb vessels associated with a con- 



striction of the vessels of the splanchnic area. The effect 

 upon the blood-pressure was a preliminary rise which was 

 only converted into a fall when considerable doses had 

 been given. If larger doses were suddenly administered 

 the effect upon the heart was usually marked inhibition, 

 which he ascribed to a direct action of the drug upon the 

 cardiac centre. 



Prof. E. \. Schafer remarked that in some recent experi- 

 ments he had found that if a mixture of chloroform and 

 alcohol was made to replace the chloroform with which the 

 animal was being ana;sthetised, the result was an acceler- 

 I ation of the heart-beat, together with an increase in its 

 force. This was not due merely to the diminution in the 

 amount of chloroform administered. 



The morning of .'\ugust 19 was devoted to a discussion 

 upon the relation of oxidation to functional activity. A 

 report of tliis discussion appears in another part of Nature 

 (p. 590). Mr. Hankin's remarks on the spread of plague 

 will be printed separately in another issue. 



Dr. \V. H. R. Rivers communicated the results of some 

 of his observations on the senses of the Todas. These were 

 made by methods similar to those which had been employed 

 in the work of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition 

 to the Torres Straits, and the results were in general con- 

 firmatory of those reached by that expedition. The observ- 

 ations on Papuan and Toda seem to show that there is no 

 marked difference between uncivilised and civilised races in 

 purely sensory powers. Any superiority in the sensory and 

 perceptual feats of the savage is probably due to his powers 

 of observation and of drawing inferences based on his 

 familiarity with his surroundings. Where there are differ- 

 ences between Papuan, Toda, and European, the Toda 

 occupies in general an intermediate position between the 

 Papuan and European, just as he occupies an intermediate 

 position between them in intellectual and cultural develop- 

 ment. 



The only striking feature which marks off the Toda from 

 the others is the great frequency of colour-blindness. 

 Whereas this condition is absent or very rare in some savage 

 races, the proportion of colour-blind persons amounts to 

 12-8 per cent, in Toda males as compared with about 4 per 

 cent, in European races. 



Dr. C. S. Myers communicated a paper upon recent de- 

 velopments in Helmholtz's theory of hearing. He alluded 

 in the first place to Ebbinghaus's conception of an inter- 

 nodal vibration of the basilar fibres, and showed its value 

 in providing a theoretical basis for the degree of relation- 

 ship between the various musical intervals. Next he re- 

 ferred to the discovery of intertones (Zwischentone) by 

 Stumpf, and to their importance in determining the number 

 of adjacent basilar fibres thrown into vibration by any 

 simple tone, and in modifying the principle of specific 

 nervous energy as applied to the ear. Schafer's theory of 

 the origin of subjective combination-tones was then de- 

 scribed, and the difference between objective and subjective 

 combination-tones was discussed. Lastly, Dr. Myers 

 showed the great value of Helmholtz's theory in best ex- 

 plaining the known pathological phenomena of hearing, 

 and suggested that the hair-cells rather than the basilar 

 fibres might be the sympathetically vibrating end-organs. 

 Such a modification involved the application of altered 

 physical considerations to the organ of Corti, but appeared 

 more rational and less difficult on the whole. 



In the morning of Monday, August 22, the work of the 

 section was devoted to a discussion on conduction and 

 structure in the nerve-arc and nerve cell. 



Prof. J. N. Langley, in opening this discussion, said 

 that he restricted himself to a consideration of the general 

 scheme of structure and arrangement of the nervous system 

 in vertebrates, and the broad relation of this scheme to 

 nervous functions. At present there are two main ideas 

 of structure, one often called the neurone theory, according 

 to which the nervous system is made up of a multitude of 

 neurones or cells which have no connection with one another, 

 and the fibrillar theory, according to which the nervous 

 conducting part consists of minute fibrils joined together 

 here and there into a network. Prof. Langley argued that 

 whatever view is taken of the structure of the nervous 

 system, the facts of degeneration of nerves show that it is 

 made up of a number of trophic units, and that the theory 

 of trophic units held whether the unit consisted of one or 



NO. 1824, VOL. 70] 



