176 Report OF THE CHEMICAL DEPARTMENT OF THE 
considerable. However, these results do not enable us to know 
whether the chloroform exercised any restraining influence upon 
the activity of the enzyme. Any such repressing effect of chlo- 
roform upon enzyme action could be directly shown only by 
using as a means of comparison inilk containing no chloroform, 
but under such conditions the action of bacteria would render 
the comparison worthless. 
A comparison of the changes produced in the bottles contain- 
ing the different percentages of chloroform shows a surprisingly 
small decrease of change in bottles having the larger propor- 
tions of chloroform. This tends to show that chloroform 
restrains enzyme action only slightly. 
The germ content, even in the bottles containing only 2.5 per 
ct. of chloroform, was so small that the observed changes were 
undoubtedly due to the enzymes present in the milk at the begin- 
ning of the experiment. 
EFFECT OF VARYING PERCENTAGES OF FAT UPON THE ANTISEPTIO 
VALUE OF CHLOROFORM. 
In the case of ether, Babcock and Russell?® have shown that 
it has a strong tendency to combine with the fat present in such 
a way as not to exert its anesthetic influence. For this reason 
rich cream could hardly be kept from decomposing through 
bacterial action when ether was used. 
To test this phase of the question with chloroform, two series 
of bottles were prepared. The first contained 10 per ct. and the 
second 20 per ct. of butter-fat and in each series duplicate 
bottles contained 2.5, 5, 10 and 20 per ct. of chloroform. 
In order that the transformations in each of the bottles in the 
two series should be directly comparable when expressed in per- 
centages of total nitrogen, it was necessary that for a given 
quantity of nitrogen in any bottle there should also be present a 
corresponding amount of enzyme. 
In order to maintain these relations, each bottle contained 
900 ce. of a mixture made up of 540 ce. of whole milk, together 
with sufficient chloroform and melted butter-fat to give the 
’Babcock and Russell. See footnote 19. 
