PHYSIOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF Lack oF OxYGEN 871° 
produce carbon dioxide without containing oxygen that can 
be exhausted by an air pump.' Pfliiger’ and Aubert* have 
shown the same to be true for the living frog. No one 
doubts that we are dealing with phenomena of splitting 
in these cases, which are at the same time the source of 
energy and the source for the motions, and the other physi- 
ological functions that go on in the vacuum. The differences 
observed by Spallanzani and Bunge in the length of time 
that animals live without oxygen may therefore be explained 
by assuming that different forms of animals contain different 
amounts of hydrolyzable substances. As soon as this 
material is used up ‘the clock stands still.’ Oxygen plays 
the réle of replacing the substances capable of undergoing 
splitting which have been used up. 
By calculating the energy obtainable by the hydrolysis 
and by the oxidation of carbohydrates Bunge has rendered 
it probable that in the higher animals the production of 
powerful work is not caused by hydrolysis alone, but by 
hydrolysis and oxidation. According to this, lack of oxygen 
could at once reduce the capacity for work of an animal by 
limiting it to the energy which can be obtained from 
hydrolysis. 
Hoppe-Seyler was the first to suggest a chemical theory 
for the processes of oxidation which occur in the living organ- 
ism.* He believes that, as in the process of putrefaction, 
reducing substances (such as hydrogen in the nascent state) 
are formed in all living cells through hydrolysis, and that 
these substances, when atmospheric oxygen is present, tear 
apart the oxygen molecule. The free oxygen atom is then 
in the condition in which it is able to bring about the oxida- 
1 Untersuchungen tiber den Stoffwechsel der Muskeln (Berlin, 1867). 
2 Pfligers Archiv, Vol. X. 3 Ibid., Vol. XXVI. 
4 At the time I wrote this paper I was not familiar with the papers of Traube on 
the subject, which seem to give a more adequate presentation of the subject than 
Hoppe-seyler’s hypothesis. [1903] 
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