Apkil 30j 1915] 



SCIENCE 



655 



antagonism unless it can be shown that some- 

 where in the complex of reactions one or more 

 functions have been oppositely affected by the 

 supposed antagonists. Death gives an un- 

 analyzed result in which antagonisms may or 

 may not have played a part. 



The ideal criterion would be a single clear- 

 cut fimction that by acceleration or by retar- 

 dation in its activity would give information 

 concerning the way in which definite external 

 factors affect it. It is difficult, perhaps im- 

 possible, to carry the physiological analysis 

 thus far, but the use of any one function that 

 gives results capable of quantitative expres- 

 sion simplifies the problem and approaches 

 more closely to certainty that antagonisms do 

 exist. It is not to be understood that the sur- 

 vival time (death criterion) can not indicate 

 antagonism in a rough way, but only that it 

 does not necessarily indicate it. 



What, then, is antagonism? In general, the 

 historically established sense in which it came 

 into general usage among physiologists should 

 be retained as long as it clearly covers the idea 

 with which it was associated. As new concep- 

 tions enter they should be designated in fitting 

 terms, in order that confusion may be avoided. 

 In the original sense in medicine, antagonists 

 were much the same as antidotes, antagonists 

 being sought for poisonous substances. Here 

 clearly the idea of the physiological effacement 

 of one by the other was generally accepted. 

 Oftentimes a restoration to the normal was a 

 result of such effacement, but such was not 

 necessarily the case in order to have antag- 

 onism. Sometimes, each of the antagonists 

 could efface the other and produce the opposite 

 physiological state, illustrating mutual antag- 

 onism, but more frequently one antagonist 

 only was able to efface the other, illustrating 

 simple antagonism. The work developing these 

 results was based on the serial application of 

 the solutions to the organ. We are now con- 

 fronted with the fact that, in mixtures of 

 salts, the growth rate, survival time, or quan- 

 tity of ions absorbed, as possible criteria, is 

 found to exceed that observed in the sum of the 

 actions of the constituents in unmixed solu- 

 tions. 



If we recur to Luchsinger's conception of 



algebraic plus and minus we interpret the fre- 

 quently observed increment above the ex- 

 pected result not only as indicative of the 

 physiological effacement of one constituent 

 by the other, but as indicative also of an effect 

 beyond simple physiological opposition. It is 

 antagonism in the historic sense of animal 

 physiology plus something else. By Osterhout 

 this increment over the results to be expected 

 on the basis of the effacement of the effect of 

 one antagonist by that of the other, the 

 " something else," is proposed as a measure of 

 antagonism. It seems to the writer that this 

 effect comes not from the physiological opposi- 

 tion of the constituents, but rather from their 

 cooperation in the cell in affecting favorably 

 the total balance of cell activities. It is hard 

 to see in this favorable action merely an ex- 

 pression of physiological opposition ; it appears 

 much nearer to the " synergism " of the older 

 physiologists, a term used to designate phys- 

 iological cooperation as opposed to antagonism. 



In our present uninstructed condition con- 

 cerning the activities at play in the living cell, 

 it is hard to see how any scheme can at this 

 time be proposed by which we can designate 

 the degree in which ions entering the plant 

 come into physiological opposition in the mani- 

 fold functions likely to be affected by them. 

 The result obtained by the investigator is the 

 resultant of an indefinite number of inter- 

 actions on few or many functions, and we can 

 not assess its separate antagonisms and " syner- 

 gisms." We are only able to say whether this 

 result is above or below that obtained in the 

 control medium. This control medium may 

 furnish merely a fixed point for comparison or 

 it may in addition also furnish an expression 

 of normality. 



In sea water we have the interesting case 

 of a balanced solution, a mixture of salts, each 

 by itseK toxic in the concentration present in 

 the natural medium, but in the mixture seen 

 in the sea water, not only capable of sustaining 

 life, but of nourishing marine organisms in so 

 far as the ash constituents go. It is evident, 

 since the individual constituents cause death 

 under circumstances hardly explicable on the 

 basis of nutritional failure, that we have here 

 a group of antagonisms and synergisms so 



