Abstract
While studying the effects of various chemicals and toxins on the activity of freshly prepared muscle oxydase, the authors made some interesting findings regarding the behavior of certain inorganic and organic mercurial antiseptics. A modification of the Thunberg method of determining the decolorization of a standard solution of methylthionine chloride, or methylene blue, in specially constructed glass vacuum tubes was employed. After considerable experimentation the following procedure was found to give the most satisfactory and surprisingly uniform results. Leg and abdominal muscles were carefully dissected from adult white rats, which had been killed by arteriotomy (or cutting of the vessels of the throat), and minced with sharp scissors in a glass mortar. To several grams of this muscle was added an equal number of cubic centimeters of physiological saline. The whole mass was then ground up with clean sand in a porcelain mortar for half an hour and then strained through fine linen. In this way a uniform suspension of minute particles of muscle tissue in muscle juice and saline was obtained. One cubic centimeter of such freshly prepared muscle suspension was introduced with a pipette into a Thunberg tube. Two cubic centimeters of methylene blue solution were then added to the muscle suspension in the tube. This indicator solution was made of 8 parts of methylene blue, 1:2,000, and 6 parts of 0.1 molar solution of acid potassium phosphate. With a Cenco-Hyvac vacuum pump the air was exhausted from the tube, which was then placed in a water bath at 38°C.; and the time required to completely decolorize the solution was carefully measured. The vacuum in the Thunberg tubes was perfectly maintained by carefully greasing the stopcock with a specially prepared lubricant containing a little gutta-percha.
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