382 



Prof. B. Moore and Mr. H. E. Eoaf. 



[Apr. 12, 



" On certain Physical and Chemical Properties of Solutions of 

 Chloroform in Water, Saline, Serum, and Haemoglobin. A 

 Contribution to the Chemistry of Anaesthesia. — (Preliminary 

 Communication.)" By Benjamin Moore, M.A., D.Sc, John- 

 ston Professor of Bio-chemistry, University of Liverpool, and 

 Herbert E. Eoaf, M.B., Toronto, Johnston Colonial Fellow, 

 University of Liverpool. Communicated by Professor C. S. 

 Sherrington, F.B.S. Beceived April 12,— Bead May 5, 

 1904 



The number of substances which have been shown to possess more 

 or less well-marked anaesthetising properties reaches some hundreds, 

 and hence it is obvious that the action cannot have a different 

 explanation in each case, but rather depends upon some general type 

 of interaction between the anaesthetic and the active part of the cell, 

 which is the cell-protoplasm. 



Further, the action occurs not only with nerve-cells, but with 

 ciliated and other epithelial cells, with muscle-cells of all types, with 

 bacteria, amoebae, and other unicellular organisms, and with all types 

 of vegetable cells in which activity is suited to experimental demon- 

 stration. In all these varied types of living cell, activity decreases 

 alike with increasing dose of the anaesthetic, and, with sufficient 

 concentration, all sign of life becomes obliterated. 



Hence the action of the anaesthetic must be due to some change 

 brought about in the only material which is uniformly present in all 

 these types of cell, that is, the cell-protoplasm. 



Accordingly, in briefly reviewing, as an introduction to our experi- 

 ments, the previous theories of anaesthesia which have been advanced 

 by various observers, we believe we may justly cast aside those which 

 attribute it fundamentally to anything peculiar in the structure or 

 chemical composition of the nerve-cell, or to any alteration in the 

 nutrition of the nervous system, brought about by variations in its 

 blood supply or otherwise. 



It is true that cells differ in the degree of their reaction to 

 anaesthetics, but not in kind, and ultimately the metabolic processes 

 of bacteria are stilled as effectually as are those of the mammalian 

 nerve-cell. Any such effects as anaemia or hyperaemia of the brain, 

 which have been alternately described by various observers, must 

 accordingly be only set down as secondary effects, and not as primary 

 causes of anaesthesia. 



Similarly, theories which are based on the peculiarly high content in 

 cholestearin, lecithin, and fatty derivatives soluble in ether, of the 

 nerve-cell and its processes, cannot furnish an explanation of anaesthesia, 



