32 
The control experiment was as follows; The guinea pig belonged 
to the same litter as the above and had been kept on the same food 
(with the exception of the alcohol) since December, 1905. 
Date. 
W eight of 
guinea pig. 
Remarks. 
September 17, 1906 
Grams. 
670 
201 milligrams sodium sulphocyanate (0.3 mil- 
ligram per gram) jper os. 
The secretion of sulphocyanate (calculated as the sodium salt) was 
as follows: 
i 
Day. 
Sodium sulpho- 
cyanate. 
First day 
Milligrams. 
99. 23 
Second day 
40. 10 
Third day 
5.27 
Total 
144. 60 
In this case 71.9 per cent of the sulphocyanate administered fer os 
reappeared in the urine; that is, the normal animal excreted more 
than the animal on alcohol, which is just the reverse of what occurs 
after the administration of acetonitrile. 
The above experiments show that there is practically no difference 
between the amounts of sulphocyanate excreted by normal and alco- 
holic guinea pigs after the administration of sodium sulphocyanate; 
hence, the increased excretion by the guinea pigs on alcohol of sul- 
phocyanate, after the administration of acetonitrile, most probably 
depends upon an increased formation of sulphocyanate, and hence upon 
an increased breaking up of the molecule of acetonitrile. Whether 
this increased breaking up of the acetonitrile is due to processes of 
oxidation (as I suppose to be the case) or to simple cleavage, it is im- 
possible to state. In any case, the increased susceptibility of the 
alcohol animals is evidently connected with profound modifications 
of metabolic processes, and thus one case of increased susceptibility 
can be taken from the vague class of ^‘lowered resistance” and a 
rational explanation offered. 
WTiile it may not be altogether justifiable to bring in Ehrlich’s 
side-chain theory of immunity in this connection, yet this theory 
enables us to form a mental picture of how the tolerance for alcohol 
and the increased powder to oxidize the methyl group of acetonitrile 
