262 IRRITABILITY 



tion. If we assume that the substances possessing the character 

 of oxygen carriers, which activate the molecular oxygen and so 

 render it capable of attacking the oxydable substances, lose this 

 capability under the influence of narcotics, this supposition would 

 not only make all of the facts of suppression of oxygen exchange 

 in narcosis comprehensible, considered from one point, but like- 

 wise, as careful investigation has shown, be in complete harmony 

 with all knowledge obtained up to the present of the process of 

 narcosis. 



Here is the point where the interesting observations of Hans 

 Meyer^ and Overton^ on the relations of the depressing influence 

 of narcotics to their solubility of fat and water may be connected 

 with the facts of the suppression of oxydation. Meyer and Over- 

 ton have quite independently of each other made the same obser- 

 vation, that the depressing effect of a narcotic is the greater, the 

 larger the coefficient of distribution between substances of a fatty 

 nature and water. Those narcotics produce the strongest effects 

 which are readily soluble in substances of a fatty nature, but not 

 easily so in water, that is, in which the coefficient distri- 

 bution between fat and water is very great. This law, which 

 has been demonstrated by Meyer and Overton for a large number 

 of narcotic processes, is in itself not a theory of narcosis, as 

 has been often erroneously assumed. It shows us, however, 

 an important condition, which must be considered in every 

 theory of narcosis. It demonstrates that it is the ease with 

 which transmission in the lipoid occurs which allows a substance 

 to develop narcotic effects. These facts would seem to indicate 

 that the lipoids of the cell are connected in some way or other 

 with the exchange of oxygen. If we assume that the oxygen 

 carriers, the chemical constitution of which is so far not known, 

 bear the character of lipoids and belong, say, to the generally 

 extended group of phosphatides, there results at once an apparent 



1 Hans Meyer: "Welche Eigenschaft der Anaesthetica bedingt ihre narkotische 

 Wirkung?" Arch, experimentelle Pathol, u. Pharmacol. Bd. 42, 1899. Further: Friiz 

 Baum: "Ein physiologisch-chemischer Beitrag 2ur Theorie der Narkotica." Ibidem. 



2 Overton: The first communication of the results obtained by Overton were made 

 by Rost: "Zur Theorie der Narkose" in the Naturwiss. Rundschau Jarhrg. 1899. 

 Overton has treated the subject in detail in his work, "Studien uber die Narkose 

 zugleich ein Beitrag zur allgemeinen Pharmakologie." Jena 1901. 



