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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LIII. No. 1362 



disturbed so that the advancing wave of con- 

 traction meets a contracted instead of an 

 inhibited area conditions are present which 

 may well bring about a distension sufficient 

 to account for the pain of colic. He gives 

 many other illustrations of pathological con- 

 ditions which may find a plausible explana- 

 tion on the assumption of a disorder or dis- 

 harmony in the law of contrary innervation. 

 How far Dr. Meltzer \«as correct in the appli- 

 cations of his theory it is not possible to say. 

 In all probability some of the specific in- 

 stances that he cites in support of his views 

 are amenable now to other explanations. But 

 it is a fact, I believe, that he was much in 

 advance of his earlier contemporaries in the 

 emphasis he placed upon the significance of 

 inhibition in the general activities of the 

 body. The story is far from being told but 

 it may be said that physiological thought 

 since 1883 has tended more and more toward 

 some such general conception of the role of 

 inhibition as was in Meltzer's mind. For him 

 at least it was a rewarding theory, it played, 

 as he expressed it, a dominating part in all 

 of his researches. One can not wholly ap- 

 preciate his work nor understand his position 

 on controversial points unless this attitude is 

 bom in mind. His theory of shock for ex- 

 ample to which he held tenaciously was that 

 " the various injuries which are capable of 

 bringing on shock do so by favoring the 

 development of the inhibitory side of all the 

 functions of the body." There is a shifting 

 of the normal balance toward the side of 

 inhibition. 



The most important of his contributions in 

 later years will be found in three series of 

 researches, one dealing with the action of 

 adrenalin upon the blood-vessels and the 

 pupillary muscles; one with the inhibitory 

 action of magnesium sulphate and the antag- 

 onistic eifect of the calcium salts, and one 

 with the development of his method or arti- 

 ficial respiration by pharyngeal and intra- 

 tracheal insufflation. The first series consists 

 of eight or nine papers, mostly in collabora- 

 tion with his daughter. They showed in this 

 work that the temporary action of adrenalin 



upon the blood-vessels may be converted into 

 a long-lasting effect, in the case of the ear- 

 vessels, if these vessels are first denervated 

 by section of the vaso-motor fibers in the sym- 

 pathetic and the third cervical nerve. A 

 more striking result still was obtained for the 

 iris. In the mammal subcutaneous injections 

 of adrenalin in moderate doses have no effect 

 upon the size of the pupil, but if the superior 

 cervical ganglion is first excised then, after 

 a certain interval, subcutaneous injections 

 bring on a marked and long-lasting dilatation. 

 His explanation of these phenomena was 

 made in terms of his theory of inhibition. 

 Whether or not his views in regard to the 

 relations of the cervical ganglion to pupil- 

 lary dilatation will stand the test of future 

 experimental work it is to be noted that the 

 observation itself constitutes a significant 

 instance of a kind of independent physio- 

 logical activity on the part of a peripheral 

 ganglion. The bearing of these facts upon 

 the prevalent conception of the rapid destruc- 

 tion of epinephrin in the tissues was brought 

 out especially in a paper with Auer in which 

 it was shown that if adrenalin is injected into 

 a ligated limb and an hour or so afterward 

 the ligature is removed the dilatation of the 

 pupil quickly follows, thus demonstrating that 

 for this long period the adrenalin had re- 

 mained unaffected by the tissues. Incidental 

 results of this series of experiments were his 

 discovery of tlie use of the frog's eye as a 

 biological reagent for the detection of small 

 concentrations of epinephrin and the rapidity 

 of absorption in intramuscular as compared 

 with subcutaneous injections. 



The work upon the inhibitory and anesthe- 

 tic effects of magnesium salts gave rise to no 

 less than twenty five papers, most of them 

 published in collaboration with one or an- 

 other of his associates but chiefly with Dr. 

 Auer. The peculiar inhibitory action of 

 magnesium sulphate had attracted his atten- 

 tion as far back as 1899, and he reported upon 

 it incidentally in a communication to the 

 American Physiological Society. But in 

 1904-05, influenced again by his general con- 

 ception of the importance of the inhibitory 



