Vol. 6. 1920 PHYSIOLOGY: MEDES AND McCLENDON 
243 
THE EFFECT OF ANESTHETICS ON LIVING CELLS 
By Grace M^des and J. F. McClBndon 
PHYSIOI.OGICAI. LABORATORmS OP VaSSAR CoLLKGE AND THE UNIVERSITY OP 
Minnesota Medicai. School and the Marine Laboratory of 
THE Carnegie Institution at Tortugas, Fla. 
Communicated by A. G. Mayor, March 17, 1920 
The object of this research is to determine the effect of different anes- 
thetics on several activities or properties of living cells, permeability, 
oxygen consumption, CO2 production, photosynthesis, protoplasmic 
streaming and cell structure. Plant cells, Klodea as well as animal cells, 
Cassiopea, were used. Not all anesthetics had the same effect and the 
same anesthetic affected the same activity of a plant differently from an 
animal and affected different activities of the same cell differently. One 
correlation, however, was evident. All the anesthetics tried increased 
plant cell respiration and permeability. What might seem to be excep- 
tions to this rule occurred under overdoses of the anesthetic and we were 
dealing with dead cells, which are outside the limits of this research. 
All of the experiments were performed in thermostats at 30°. The 
Cassiopeas were kept in sea water, usually of alkaline reserve = 0.0025 N 
and = 8-2 at the start, and the Elodea in a distilled water solution of 
NaHCOs of alkaline reserve = 0.0025 N and = 7.6. At this alkaline 
reserve a change in of O-l was produced by a change in CO2 content 
per liter of 1.5 cc. By determining the change in colorimetrically 
the production of CO2 could be estimated. The oxygen consumed was 
determined by the Winkler method. The results were expressed in cc. 
of tenth normal thiosulphate for 100 cc. water in the Elodea experiments 
and as cc. of O2 in the Cassiopea experiments. Since these data cover 
many pages even when condensed into tabular form, it is thought best to 
convert the results into percentages of the normal and summarize them. 
In the first place, higher concentrations of anesthetics evidently killed 
the cells and it was necessary to decide at just what concentration perma- 
nent injury occurred in order to separate such data from that concerning 
reversible changes characteristic of anesthesia. In the higher concen- 
trations of anesthetics Elodea cells became irreversibly plasmolyzed (false 
plasmolysis), respiration and photosynthesis ceased, protoplasmic rota- 
tion stopped, the chloroplasts shrunk to a very small size and gave out 
some chlorophyll to the surrounding water, and there was a very sharp 
rise in the exosmosis of chlorides from the cells. On return to water, 
respiration did not commence again and the cell became the prey of bac- 
teria. The cell might recover, however, after lowering of the rate of 
photosynthesis. Cessation of respiration seemed to be the best criterion 
of death in Elodea, but if the cells did not all die at the same time, the death 
of some cells could not be detected by this means. It seemed that a cell 
