T. B. Magath 399 
body fluid 7 ce., and the visceral organs 26 cc. The average 
of the last three items run separately yielded the same amount 
as the total worms, thus furnishing a check on the determinations. 
The cuticula, when freed from the other two layers of the body 
wall, does not liberate oxygen from hydrogen peroxide but weighs 
one-fourth the total amount of the wall; hence it will be seen 
that the other two layers involved really yielded 17 cc. of oxygen 
per gm. 
While these amounts are very small as compared with those 
obtained from free living animals it must be remembered that 
these parasites are very sluggish and their activities are greatly 
curtailed by the limited amount of oxygen in their environment. 
However, when these results are compared with the case of the 
frog in Table II, an interesting observation can be made. A 
gram of muscle and subcuticula from the Ascaris yielded about 
five-eighths as much oxygen as did the reproductive organs, while 
in the frog the most active muscles in the body yielded only 
about one-fifth the amount yielded by the ovaries of that animal. 
In other words, the sluggish and inactive muscles of the Ascaris 
have more than three times the amount of catalase in them as 
the most active muscles of a very active vertebrate, when they 
are compared with the reproductive organs of the same animals 
respectively from which they came. At the present time this 
seems to be the most fair way to compare the two cases. It re- 
mains for someone to show quantitatively how much of this 
catalase 1s necessary to carry on the functions of nutrition, mo- 
tion, ete., and finally that the amount left over is sufficient and 
does provide the necessary amount of oxygen to protect the 
’ worm from the enzymes of its host. The work presented in this 
paper, while not final, indicates, to the mind of the author, a 
possible connection between the two statements made by Burge, 
that intestinal worms are protected from enzymic action by ox1- 
dative processes, and that catalase is in some way responsible 
for the oxidative processes in animals other than parasites. It 
is hoped that this contribution will serve as a stimulus for others 
to undertake investigations along this line. 
