978 REPORT—1896. 
acetate of lead, not reducing Fehling’s solution, but transformable by boiling with 
sulphuric acid into a body which does so. Its elementary composition was found 
to be very close to that of dextrose, with which, remarks Schiitzenberger, it pre- 
sents the greatest analogy. Evidently, he continues, there is a connection between 
the body obtained in the experiments with baryta and the cupric oxide reducing 
substance obtained in the experiments with sulphuric acid. 
My own experiments were started upon grounds totally different from those 
which suggested the purely chemical investigation of Schiitzenberger. Sulphuric 
acid was used in common by us, but baryta took the place of the potash used by 
me. It is interesting to note the strict conformity traceable in the results, but 
persons have failed to see the importance of Schiitzenberger’s work, for till now all 
the attention it has received is a passing allusion here and there to the bare facts 
observed. 
That proteid matter, however, should thus constitute a glucoside is, I consider, 
a point of the deepest physiological interest, and that such should be its nature 
simply stands in harmony with what is to be learnt with respect to its formation. 
For instance, taking Pasteur’s experiments on the growth of yeast, irrefutable 
evidence is afforded that carbohydrate matter is appropriated in the construction 
of proteid. Pasteur showed that yeast cells freely multiply in a medium consisting 
of sugar, ammonium tartrate, the ash of yeast, and water. The growth that takes 
place implies a growth of cell protoplasm, and with it a corresponding formation 
of proteid matter. The ammonium nitrate, which contains no carbon, may be sub- 
stituted for the ammonium tartrate, and then absolutely the only source for the 
carbon of the proteid is the sugar that is present. 
Incorporated during its construction, the carbohydrate can be withdrawn, as I 
have shown, from proteid matter by the cleaving power of chemical and ferment 
action. The position we are thus placed in is this. The carbohydrate of our food 
is in part applied to the construction of proteid matter, and in this locked-up state 
may be conveyed to the tissues for their growth and renovation without running 
off as waste material through the kidney, as could not do otherwise than occur if it 
were conveyed as sugar in a free form, From the proteid of the tissues it may be 
cleaved off by ferment agency, and probably this is the source of the carbohydrate 
found to be present to a certain extent in a free state in connection with the 
various components of the body. There is no doubt that in the grave form of 
diabetes the sugar eliminated is derived, not only from the food, but also from the 
tissues, and the glucoside constitution of proteid matter fits in with and affords a 
ready explanation of the state of things, all that is wanted being the existence of 
the requisite ferment agency. 
6. The Discharge of a Single Nerve Cell. By Professor F. Gotcu, /.A.S. 
The electrical organ of Malapterwrus electricus is innervated on each side by 
the axis-cylinder branches of a simple nerve cell. The response of the organ to 
stimulation presents characteristics which can only be explained on the assump- 
tion that it is the change in the nerve endings of these axis-cylinder branches, In 
consequence of these two facts, the time relations of the organ response to reflex 
stimulation afford grounds for deductions as to those of the single nerve cell dis- 
charge by which the response is evoked. These time relations may be divided 
into two classes: (1) The propagation time through the cell and its connections, 
ze. central delay ; (2) the periodicity of the excitatory changes issuing from the 
cell, z.e. reflex rhythm. 
1, Experiments show with regard to the central delay, that it has a minimum 
of ‘01 second. ‘This delay is, in the opinion of the author, due to the character of 
the structural path, which in the central mechanism consists of (a) fine axis- 
cylinder branches of both afferent nerves and cell processes; (6) an unknown 
field of conjunction ; (c) the body of the nerve cell. 
In the efferent nerve branches a delay of ‘003 second exists both in muscles 
and in electrical organs, which is termed the nerve ending excitatory delay, If 
such delay, due to retarded propagation, is present in the central fine nerve 
