710 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION I. 



Emil Fischer, whose previous work on cartohydrates is so illuminating.' In the 

 splendid chemical laboratory at Berlin, with its unparalleled equipment, a succes- 

 sion of researches have been carried out dealing not only with the constitution of 

 the simpler proteid derivatives but also with the important and difficult problem 

 of the synthetic grouping of these derivatives into more complex compounds. 

 The success which has so far attended these investigations is so pronounced as to 

 encourage the hope that the future may reveal the chemical constitution of proteid 

 itself and thus bring us perceptibly nearer to its possible synthetic formation. 

 We congratulate ourselves that this problem has at last attracted the earnest 

 attention of organic chemists. 



I now invite your attention to those further aspects indicated in the opening 

 sentence of this address, which imply the presence of automatic mechanisms by 

 which the various processes of the body organs are regulated and co-ordinated 

 for the welfare of the whole organism. 



Many such automatic mechanisms are now known. Some of these are of an 

 obvious chemical type, the mechanism being the production in minute quantity 

 of chemical substances which are conveyed to remote organs by the circulating 

 blood. In this way adrenalin, a substance elaborated by the medullary portion of 

 the suprarenal organs, augments the activities of the muscles, particularly those 

 of the arterioles. From his recent researches, Langley* is disposed to believe 

 that many chemical compounds which augment or diminish the activity of muscles 

 and glands do not act by altering the differentiated tissue but play upon a hypo- 

 thetical receptive substance which lies at the junction of the tissue with its 

 entering nerves. This middleman, so situated as to lie in the interstices of the 

 neuro-muscular junction, bears a relation to the muscle or gland-cell somewhat 

 analogous to that which the fulminating cap bears to the cartridge, and it is quite 

 conceivable that it is maintained in an appropriate condition of instability or 

 explosiveness by the direct action of chemical substances conveyed to it in minute 

 amounts by the blood. 



It is remarkable how many of these strictly chemical automatic mechanisms 

 have been discovered in the last few years, thus substantiating the views of 

 Brown-S6quard. The automatic character of the mechanism which determines 

 the secretion of the pancreatic fluid was revealed by the experiments of Bayliss 

 and Starling, which showed that definite chemical compounds are formed in the 

 lining cells of the small intestine, and that treatment with weak acid, such as 

 occurs in the acid chyme, liberates a substance which, absorbed into the blood, 

 has the special function of stimulating the pancreatic cells.^ A similar automatic 

 mechanism has been found by Edkins to exist in the stomach, lor although the 

 flow of gastric juice is initiated by nervous channels, the subsequent peptic 

 secretion is largely augmented through the presence in the blood of chemical 

 substances elaborated and absorbed in the pyloric portion of the stomach wall.* 

 Marshall and Jolly have recently shown that substances elaborated in the maternal 

 ovaries, and particularly in the corpus luteum,* determine, when introduced into 

 the circulating blood, the changes necessary for the proper attachment of the 

 embryo to the uterine wall and thus the further development of the embryo during 

 the first stages of pregnancy. The researches of Starling and Miss Lane-Claypon 

 indicate that chemical substances formed during pregnancy in the tissues of the 

 foetus will, if introduced into the maternal blood, directly evoke the appropriate 

 activities of the remote mammary glands.'' 



' E. Fischer, Berichte Deittsch. Gesellschaft, xxxviii. 1905. (See also 'La 

 synthese des matiferes proteiques,' par L. C. Maillard. Revue Generale des Sciences, 

 Fevr. 1906. Paris.) 



^ J. N. Langley, Jown. of Physiol., xxxiii. 1905, p. 371, and Croonian Lecture, 

 Koy. Soc, 1906. 



^ Bayliss and Starling, Journ. of PhysiM., xxviii. 1902, p. 325. 



* Edkins, * On the Chemical Mechanism of Gastric Secretion, 'Proc. Boy. Soc, B, 

 Ixxvi. 1905, p. 376. 



'^ Marshall and Jolly, Phil. Tram. Roy. Soc. London, B, 1905, p. 198. 



* Starling and Lane-CIaypon, Proc. Roy. Soc, B. Ixxvii., 1906, p. 506. 



