1889—90.] Dr A. Bruce on the Inferior Olivary Body. 27 
fad., root of facial nerve; a.o.t., acustico-olivary tract; vizi B. nucl., Bech- 
ferew’s nucleus of auditory nerve; s.p.c., superior cerebellar peduncle. 
Plate II. — a.p., anterior pyramid; /., fillet; c.t., corpus trapezoideum; B.t., 
Becbterevv’s tract; sup. olive, superior olive; viz nucl., nucleus of facial nerve; 
v.Asc., ascending root of fifth; c.r., corpus restiforme. 
Enzyme Action in Lower Organisms. By G. E. 
Cartwright Wood, M.D., B.Sc. 
(Read December 16, 1889.) 
The soluble ferments or enzymes have always aroused the deepest 
interest, partly from the mystery which enshrouded their mode of 
action, partly from the importance of the processes with which they 
are associated. The peculiar power which each possesses of decom- 
posing apparently unlimited quantities of a specific medium, without 
itself being used up in the process, has occasioned the confusion of 
enzyme action with processes truly vital in their nature. Although 
this action had only been demonstrated as subserving an alimentary 
function, its aid was invoked to explain many of the more obscure 
phenomena of biology. The series of decompositions which carbo- 
hydrates may undergo, known as the alcoholic, lactic, and butyric 
fermentations, were long ascribed to it. Even when Pasteur had 
proved that these processes were always correlated with a vital fact 
— the growth and multiplication of living cells — Traube,* Hoppe- 
Seyler, and Liebig f still contended that these might act only in- 
directly by the formation of soluble ferments. The analogy between 
fermentation and the infectious processes is so striking that the 
latter have long been grouped together under the term zymotic 
diseases, and these we are every day coming to recognise more and 
more as parasitic diseases conditioned by micro-organisms. Here 
again, however, many tend to regard the microbe as not acting directly, 
but through the production of soluble ferments. The consideration 
of enzyme function in lower organisms has accordingly another 
interest than that which attaches to it, as throwing light upon the 
* Theorie der FermentwirTcungen, Berlin, 1858. 
t Ueber Gahrung, Quelle der Muskelkraft und Ernahrung, Leipsic, 1870. 
