138 PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY 



and Stern's experiments more than double this concentration is 

 needed. In fact, the concentration used by Batelli and Stern is 

 much above the lethal dose for cells. Warburg (1911 a) ex- 

 plains the fact that anesthetics inhibit ' enzymes, when contained 

 in living cells, in lower concentrations- than the same anesthetics 

 inhibit the same enzymes in cell extracts, by the assumption that 

 the enzymes within the cells are adsorbed to phase boundaries, 

 the anesthetics becoming more concentrated at the phase boun- 

 daries. If this explanation is correct we must make the further 

 assumption that the enzymes in the cell extracts referred to are 

 in true solution, whereas the invertase used by Meyerhof formed 

 a colloidal solution because the invertase was inhibited by as 

 low a concentration of anesthetic as is required to inhibit the 

 respiration of the erythrocytes. 



Although Batelli and Stern claim that anesthetics precipitate 

 proteins Traube and Kohler (191 5) and Traube (1915) assert 

 that anesthetics help in the solution of proteins. In the follow- 

 ing table they have arranged anesthetics according to their power 

 of hastening the swelling and solation of gelatine jelly (and re- 

 tarding gelation of sols). It is found that they are with few 

 exceptions in the order of anesthetic power, as shown by the 

 figures in the last column, which represent the molecular concen- 

 tration for anesthesia. 



Anesthetic concentration 

 Anesthetic (Overton) 



Phenanthren 0000037 



Thymol 000055 



Napthaliiie 000065 



Chlorofonm 0014 



■Chloral hydrate (acid) 006 



Ethyl ether 001 



Ethyl chloride 0045 



Sulfonal 0088 



Trional 0064 



Isoaimyl alcohol 023 



Ethyl urethane 041 



Isobutyl alcohol 045 



Methylethyl ketone 09 



Ethyl acetate (acid) 03 



Proprionitrile 



Tert. amyl alcohol 057 



Propyl alcohol n 



Acetone • • 26 



Ethyl alcohol 39 



Methyl alcohol .57 



