THE PHYSIOLOGIVAL EFFECTS OF IONS 461 
ties must compel us to question whether we are indeed 
dealing with the effects of ions in the case of the inorganic 
acids and oxalic acid. The idea, which I have already 
suggested, that we are dealing with secondary effects in these 
cases, seems to me preferable. 
Among these secondary effects the relations to the fer- 
mentative processes which are going on at all times in living 
tissues are the first to be considered. We know from the 
work of Emil Fischer how much fermentability is a function 
of the geometric configuration of the molecule. It is possible 
that the apparent difficulties which these organic acids at 
present offer to the assumption of the physiological effects of 
ions may yet become a fruitful support for the theory of 
ionization. 
III, EXPERIMENTS WITH BASES 
LiOH, NaOH, and KOH were especially considered. A 
few series of experiments were also made with 4Ba(OH),. 
and 481(OH),. The experiments again showed that these 
bases have the same effect upon the absorption of water 
by the muscle when they are used in such concentrations 
that the same number of hydroxyl ions are contained in 
equal volumes of the solutions. 
The method was the same as that employed in the case of 
acid. Solutions of all these bases were prepared which 
were one-tenth normal with reference to OH. Of these 
solutions 5, 10, 15, or 20 c.c. were added to 100 cc. of a 
0.7 per cent. NaCl solution. The increase in weight which 
the muscle suffered in these solutions in one hour was de- 
termined and is expressed in the following tables in per- 
centage of the original weight of the muscle. We will 
give first of all the experiments with LiOH, NaOH, and 
KOH. VJ indicates again the concentration of the base; 
and V=210 means that 1 mol. of the alkali is dissolved in 
210 liters of water. 
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