44 
oxygen set free by this destructive operation could at once be utilized 
again for the continuance of the respiration process.' 
It may be asked what function the catalase performs in fermenting 
yeast and anaérobic microbes, since in these there is no normal respira- 
tion process and hence no occasion for the formation of hydrogen 
peroxid by autoxidation.” Catalase must then have still another func- 
tion, and the writer is inclined to assume for it the faculty also of 
loosening chemical affinities in certain compounds to such a degree 
that the protoplasm itself can more easily split them, or, when 
oxygen has access, can more easily oxidize them. In other words, 
catalase might represent an aid for fermentative as well as as for 
respirative phenomena. In the case of the yeast it may be of impor- 
tance for the action of Buchner’s zymase. The amount of catalase in 
yeast is relatively large (see p. 35), and the expressed juice of yeast is 
also rich in it. Catalase may also be capable of accomplishing cer- 
tain reducing processes, since platinum black can also induce reduc- 
tions as well as oxidations (see above, p. 37).. An enzym with a 
reducing action was recently observed by Abelous and Gérard in the 
aqueous extract of the horse kidney. It is capable of reducing 
nitrates to nitrites, and nitrobenzene to aniline.’ 
Since catalase is of universal occurrence in the organized world, and 
is capable of destroying every trace of hydrogen peroxid as soon as it 
is formed, it is quite impossible that the latter product could ever be 
found in living cells. The assertions, therefore, of Clermont, Wurster, 
Bach, and E. Baumann to the contrary have lost every trace of justi- 
fication. Direct tests by Bokorny, Pfeffer, Cho, and others, have 
proved the incorrectness of this assumption.‘ It is evident, further, 
that Reinke’s hypothesis of the respiration process,’ which assumes 
the formation of hydrogen»peroxid as a necessary intermediate step 
to enable the combustions to take place in the protoplasm, must be 
abandoned. The protoplasm would hardly prepare a special enzym 
Some authors go so far as to ascribe the entire respiration process to the activity 
of certain enzyms. This view is certainly incorrect; otherwise the oxidations char- 
acteristic of the respiration process should continue qualitatively and quantitatively, 
after heating cells to their death point (40°-50°C). 
2 Among the obligate anaérobic microbes the bacillus of blackleg was tested and 
also found to contain catalase. 
> Académie des Sciences, meeting of December 11, 1899. 
*It may also be mentioned that Schoenbein’s assertion of the occurrence of hydro- 
gen peroxid in the violet fluorspar of Wolsendorf has been refuted, since the writer 
demonstrated long ago that Schoenbein’s results are not due to the presence of that 
supposed ‘‘antozon,’’ or to hydrogen peroxid, but to traces of free fluorin, prob- 
ably formed by the gradual dissociation of small quantities of a superfluorid of 
cerium. The sentence on p. 118, Vol. XIII, of the ‘‘ Handworterbuch”’ relating to 
Schoenbein’s observations should therefore be corrected. 
° Botanische Zeitung, 1883, Nos. 5 and 6. 
