46 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE.—1918. 
occurs through animal membranes, attempts were made to apply the 
process to living membranes and tissues. In 1859 Richardson pro- 
duced what he termed “ voltaic narcotism ” or local anzesthesia pro- 
duced electrically by forcing morphine through the skin and into 
the tissues of the subject. The process appears to have been a com- 
bination of electrolysis and electrical endosmose. Since Richardson’s 
time a great deal of interesting work has been done on the subject 
and it has been quite conclusively demonstrated* that liquids bearing 
narcotics or drugs of ali kinds can be forced by the electric current 
into and through living skin and tissue. Electrical endosmose has 
been applied in dentistry as well, in the local anwsthesia**® of sensitive 
dentine and in bleaching teeth with hydrogen peroxide.*’ Electric 
transference of ions in solution complicates most of these so-called 
“ cataphoretic ”’ experiments (such as Edison’s** on the infiltration of 
lithium chloride) as Leduc has shown.*® 
MISCELLANEOUS. 
Schwerin has patented an electro-osmotic process*? of extracting 
sugar from beet. Sliced beet roots were placed between pervious 
walls and electrolyzed. The sugar solution containing the soluble 
albumenoids was driven through the cathode diaphragm and in this 
manner the beets were extracted. By placing water between the 
anode and the anode diaphragm the soluble acids in the beets were 
said to be removed by electrolysis and collected—an improvement 
which prevented the sugar from inverting. The process appears to 
have been electrically accelerated dialysis, except in so far as the 
acidic impurities were more or less segregated. In more recent 
years Schwerin through the Elektro-osmose A.G. has been granted 
a large number of patents dealing with the purification of colloidal 
and non-colloidal mixtures and the resolving of such mixtures into 
their constituents. By using diaphragms impervious to the colloid 
but pervious to dissolved ions, the latter may be driven out by 
electrolysis and collected about the electrodes which are usually 
surrounded in the beginning by pure water. A simple example is 
the case of extracting sugar and acids from beets, which we have 
just mentioned. Suspended colloids may themselves be fractionated 
by using diaphragms (1) the pores of which vary in size (Cf. ultra- 
fitration) (2) the interface potentials of which are different. When | 
the diaphragm operates because of differences in permeability (size 
of pores) one is dealing with ultrafiltration accelerated by electrical 
endosmose. In the other case negative diaphragms are said to hold. 
back positive colloids or vice versa and here the process is analogous 
to the mutual precipitation of eleetrical suspensions. It is doubtful, 
however, whether really satisfactory separations can be made by this 
%6 Cf. Barratt and Harris: Biochem. Jour., 6, 315 (1912) ; Morton : Cataphoresis 
89 (1898). 
36 Morgenstern : Electrochem. Zeit., 15, 189, 214, 240; Cf. Chem. Abstr. 3, 1203 
(1909). 1 
37 Morton: Cataphoresis, 41 (1898): 
38 Peterson : Bigelow’s Internat. Sys. of Therapeutics C13 (1894). 
39 Jones : Med. Electricity (4th Hd.) 228 (1904). 
40 Brit. Pat. 8068 (1901) ; 14195 (1903). 
