164 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 
the animals begin to die off in considerable numbers. 
Tables II to V illustrate these points. The calculated 
values for r are obtained by substitution of the values 
for t in the equation for a straight line at the top of each 
table. The observed values of r, which lie on the first, 
short portion of the curve, are put in parentheses. Each 
observed value for r is the mean time of recovery for a 
large number of animals (50 to 100), each observed 
individually. In this way the factor of variability in 
resistance to the poison was largely controlled. 
The general agreement between observed and cal- 
culated values of r from the writer’s data is such as to 
justify the conclusion that the action of a phenol upon 
living protoplasm is a simple linear function of the time 
during which the poison has been allowed to act. If this 
is true, it follows that disinfection is not a reaction of the 
first order. Rather, the writer’s data raise the question 
whether poisoning by phenols is not due fundamentally 
to a progressive physical alteration in the state of aggre- 
gation of protoplasmic colloids. 
BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
1Chick, Journal of Hygiene, vol. 8, p. 92 (1908); ibid., vol. 10, 
p. 238 (1910). 
2Arrhenius, Quantitative Laws in Biological Chemistry, G. Bell 
and Sons, 1915, p. 68ff. 
8Lee and Gilbert, Journal of Physical Chemistry, vol. 22, p. 
348 (1918). 
