A second possibility of a suppression of oxydation would be the _fixation of the molecules of the oxydable substances by chemical or physical combinations_ in that they would lose their capability of oxydative disintegration. Such a supposition would, however, likewise contain but few elements of probability. As has been shown, an anoxydative breaking down continues during narcosis, which, and this we may assume with certainty, furnishes very different products in great variety. These anoxydative disintegration products, as recovery on the cessation of narcosis shows, are removed during recovery by oxydation. If the effect of the narcotic consisted in the prevention in spite of the presence of oxygen of the oxydation by combination, it would be necessary to assume that the narcotic was bound to a mass of completely heterogeneous substances, a conclusion we should find difficult to entertain. If, however, depression of the oxydative processes is founded neither on the seizure of oxygen by the narcotic nor the fixation of oxydable substances by the former, there remains the possibility _that the narcotic suppresses the transmission of oxygen to these points of consumption_. We assume that the oxygen transmission to those points where its consumption takes place is carried out by special substances, the existence of which has been established in the most varied vegetable and animal cell forms. Unfortunately we only know these oxygen-carrying substances by their effects. Of their chemical constitution we have no knowledge, but we usually assume that the transmission of oxygen occurs in the same manner as in catalytic processes. On another occasion I have previously expressed the suggestion,[226] that the narcotic suppresses oxydation by producing incapability of the groups acting as oxygen carriers to carry out this function. If we assume that the substances possessing the character of oxygen carriers, which activate the molecular oxygen and so render it capable of attacking the oxydable substances, lose this capability under the influence of narcotics, this supposition would not only make all of the facts of suppression of oxygen exchange in narcosis comprehensible, considered from one point, but likewise, as careful investigation has shown, be in complete harmony with all knowledge obtained up to the present of the process of narcosis. [226] _Max Verworn_: “Ueber Narkose.” Deutsche med-Wochenschrift, 1909.