384 



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



[Apr. 12, 



on them will not hold in view of more recent work on the fibrillar 

 mode of communication between cell and cell. Further, as pointed 

 out above, any adequate view as to how anaesthetics produce their 

 effect must be applicable also to the unicellular organism, and not 

 merely to the nerve-cell, or any colony of cells. 



Wright obtained further effects as a result of prolonged anaesthesia, 

 which led him to adopt the view that the action is bio-chemical in 

 character. He found, for example, that the Nissl's bodies lost their 

 affinity for basic dyes, such as methylene blue, but that this effect was 

 only temporary, and disappeared as soon as the anaesthesia had 

 passed off. 



These changes, however, do not begin to appear immediately the 

 anaesthetic commences to produce its effect, and are rather a signal of 

 the changes produced in the protoplasm in marked degree by the 

 prolonged action of the anaesthetic than an indication of the first 

 reaction between cell-protoplasm and anaesthetic. 



Our own attention was first attracted in this direction by witnessing 

 the experiments of Sherrington and Sowton* upon the effects of 

 chloroform on the excised mammalian heart, fed by a current of 

 Ringer's or Locke's solution, and through which later a similar current, 

 but containing in addition small amounts of chloroform, could be 

 perfused. 



These authors observed that a concentration of chloroform in the 

 Locke solution, amounting to only 1 in 100,000, produced a marked 

 and unfailing action in diminishing the extent of the cardiac 

 contractions, and further that this effect appeared rapidly after the 

 dilute chloroform solution reached the heart, lasted just as long as the 

 chloroform in this excessively low but yet adequate concentration was 

 passed through, and ceased almost immediately as soon as the normal 

 Locke's solution was recurred to, the heart attaining again its normal 

 force. 



This effect could be repeated as often as was desired, and there was 

 no cumulative action whatever, that is, no matter how prolonged the 

 passage of the chloroform solution on passing back to the normal 

 Locke's solution, the chloroform effect rapidly disappeared, and again 

 recovered when the chloroform was once more turned on. 



It was this latter effect which suggested the experiments on the 

 chemistry of anaesthesia recorded in this paper. It was quite obvious 

 that the effect of the chloroform upon the cardiac muscle fibres 

 depended solely upon the concentration (solution tension, or osmotic 

 pressure) of the chloroform in the cell for the time being, and not at 

 all upon the total amount of chloroform which had been fed to the 

 heart up to the moment of observation. 



This experimental fact suggested the view that the effect upon the 

 * Thompson Yatee, 1 Johnston Laboratories Reports,' to!. 5, Part 1, p. 69. 



