1920 Volume 1 Issue 5-6 Pages 519-534
The results of this experiment may be briefly summarized as follows:
1. Filtered, glycerin-water extracts of the peripheral nerves, when tested with tributyrin, have an ester-splitting capability, which is capable of splitting up tributyrin into glycerin and butyric acid, and this power of the peripheral nerves is destroyed by heating the emulsion for five minutes in a water bath.
2. The increase in acidity, when expressed in n/20-NaOH is reasonably uniform in a unit weight of the nerve tissues in a unit length of time, and the amount of esterase does not appear to vary considerably in normal animals examined in these experiments.
3. After splitting for two hours the mean value of the five percent suspension, extracted in 50 per cent glycerin-water, will be 0.42 or thereabout.
4. Fresh human nerves as well as those obtained from fresh autopsy materials, as far as these experiments are concerned, seem to have markedly less lipolytic activity as compared with those of animals; but without an extended series of observations it is impossible to draw definite conclusions concerning this point.