244 IRRITABILITY 



merely with narcosis produced by the well-known general nar- 

 cotics, such as carbon dioxide, alcohol, ether, chloroform, etc. 

 From the time of the introduction of ether narcosis into medical 

 practice by Jackson and Morton in the year 1848 up to the present 

 day, the theory of this process has awakened the liveliest interest. 

 Many attempts have since been made to explain the physical 

 nature of this interesting process without, however, any generally 

 acknowledged theory of narcosis being established. I will refrain 

 from entering into these former theories in detail as they have 

 been exhaustively treated by Overton^ in his studies on narcosis. 



In connection with our present observations, however, I will 

 more closely analyze the process itself, following the results of 

 investigations extending over more than ten years carried out by 

 my coworkers and myself. In these investigations it has been 

 found that narcosis belongs to this group of depressing processes. 

 A satisfactory theory of narcosis, however, and this I must ex- 

 plain from the first, can even today not be arrived at. Such a 

 theory would require the ascertainment of all primary and sec- 

 ondary alterations produced by the narcotic in the course of nor- 

 mal vital activity. For this, however, a number of minute details 

 are still lacking. Nevertheless, the careful and detailed investiga- 

 tions during the last ten years have acquainted us with a large 

 number of alterations, which, acting as conditioning factors for 

 the process of narcosis, must be taken into consideration, and 

 which to a certain extent give us an idea of the mechanism of this 

 process. They are equally interesting from a theoretical as well 

 as from a practical point of view. The presentation will become 

 more detailed as more of such conditioning factors are established 

 by the deeper penetrating of future analysis. I will deal here with 

 the facts found up to the present and then proceed to the deduc- 

 tions which these furnish for the theory of narcosis. 



In the first place narcosis is stamped as a typical process of 

 depression, being characterized by a decrease of irritability with 

 a corresponding decrement of the extent of excitation. The chief 

 feature of all narcotized systems is, that in slight narcosis exci- 



1 E. Overton: "Studien uber die Narkose, zugleich ein Beitrag zur allgemeinen 

 Pharmakologie." Jena 1901. 



