253 
1911-12.] Autolysis of Animal and Vegetable Matter. 
agent which positively catalyses the same reaction, as to study it under 
conditions which retard or prevent it ; and as it is impossible to obtain an 
absolute value for the activity of an enzyme, since no method has, as yet, 
been found by which enzyme may be obtained in a state of purity, it is in 
the meantime difficult to say what is acceleration and what is retardation. 
These requirements are obviously of equal importance and of almost 
equal difficulty in fulfilment. However, since sterility is a fundamental 
condition, it is accordingly necessary in choosing an antiseptic for enzy- 
matic work to see that this is fulfilled while at the same time the other 
conditions are complied with as far as possible. 
In view of the great and constantly increasing importance of enzymology, 
it is only to be expected that a very considerable number of publications on 
the subject of antiseptics in this connection should have appeared ; but it is 
somewhat unfortunate that the vast majority deal only with the influence 
of the antiseptic on the reaction, the efficiency being taken as a foregone 
conclusion, a fact which may probably account for a large number of 
apparently contradictory results. 
The literature on the former part of the question is so great that a 
review of it in a short paper like the present is quite out of the question, 
and would, moreover, serve no purpose, since it has been very efficiently 
dealt with up to 1907 by Vandevelde in the Biochemische Zeitschrift, vol. 
iii., 1907, and more recently in Abderhalden’s Biochemische Arbeits- 
methoden . and by Samuely in Oppenheimer’s Handbuch dev Biochemie. 
In connection with zymase it has been very fully investigated by 
Buchner (2), and with regard to the digestive enzymes a multitude of 
references is found throughout medical and physiological literature. 
The position is, however, \ r ery different with regard to the other side of 
the question. Statements such as: “The material remained sterile/’ 
“ Toluol was used as antiseptic/’ are of frequent occurrence, but these can 
scarcely be considered convincing unless supported by more complete 
information. As an example of the little attention this side of the subject 
has received, it may be mentioned that in the otherwise eminently valuable 
monograph: On the Nature of Enzyme Action , by Bayliss, London, 1911, 
under the heading “ Antiseptics,” is found the solitary statement, “ On the 
whole, toluene appears to be the least injurious.” No mention whatever 
is made of the efficiency, and little more can be extracted from the other 
handbooks. 
The explanation lies in the fact that an investigation of this kind is 
extremely hard to carry out ; and as the efficiency of the different antiseptics 
varies in the case of different media, it is practically inexhaustible. Further, 
