THE ACTIVE FORCES OF LIVING ORGANISMS 27 



Another important drug which probably acts by stryoh- 

 diminishing oxidation, not perhaps in the tissues 

 generally, but in the nerve cells, is strychnine.* A 

 fact of considerable interest in connection with this 

 alkaloid is that it is produced in the nut called nux 

 vomica by an arrest of the oxidizing processes which 

 are going on in it,+ so that when it acts upon man it 

 may be said to transfer the chemico-dynamic state 

 directly from the vegetal to the animal kingdom, and 

 in this state it is the degree of oxidation which is 

 apparently of most importance. Like alcohol in small 

 doses, though in a far greater degree, it stimulates 

 muscular contraction and nervous activity in general. 

 The effect of alcohol depends on quantity in a much 

 higher degree than is the case with strychnine. One 

 can scarcely believe that the latter robs the blood of 

 an appreciable portion of its oxygen. It appears, 

 indeed, to strike a certain note, a note of diminished ^g"^™^'' 

 oxidation, and to cause the molecules of the nerve 

 centres to vibrate to this tune. The more stable it is 

 — and strychnine is supposed to be relatively a very 

 stable compound — the longer will it make its presence 

 felt dynamically. All the most powerful drugs may 

 be supposed to act dynamically rather than by virtue 

 of the quantitative chemical changes they produce. 



* See p. 25. 



t Letourneau, 'Biology,' p. 114. They (proteio substances) 

 also furnisli — ^but by incomplete oxidation, by degradation — 

 asparagin, of which we have spoken, and, without doubt, the 

 vegetal alkaloids (quinine, morphine, strychnine, etc.), quater- 

 nary, but not proteic, substances. 



