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IN the course of experimental work on "sperma crystals," extending over the last twenty years, I made an exhaustive study of the literature, as an outcome of which a new chapter must be added to the already remarkable history of an equally remarkable substance. According to the statements of the textbooks, accepted by all writers on the subject, these peculiar crystals were discovered by Bottcher [1865] in human semen and they have since been known as "Bottcher's crystals." Long before Bottcher, however, they were accurately described by Vauquelin [1791], and even this distinguished observer only rediscovered the crystals which, more than a hundred years before, had been seen and depicted by Leeuwenhoek [1678]. The passage describing the crystals occurs at the end of the famous communication to the Royal Society in which Leeuwenhoek announces the discovery of spermatozoa. The rough marginal sketch (see Fig. 1 Schreiner did not name the new substance, and it was known as " Schreiner's base" or " spermatin " for some time [see Thudichum, 1879; Fiirbringer, 1881]. The name "spermatine" had been previously used by Berzelius [1833] for a specific protein of semen, and the name " spermin," apparently first applied to the base by Ladenburg and Abel [1888] has since been in use.

TWELVE years ago one of us observed that dextrose had a marked influence in improvingf and sustaining the action of the isolated frog's heart perfused with a Ringer's solution, made with water free from traces of hieavy metals'. It was later found that the same beneficial and sustaining effect of dextrose was easily demonstrable in the case of the isolated mammalian (rabbit's) heart perfused with a suitable oxygenated Ringer's solution at a physiological temperature. A similar effect to that of dextrose was not produced by any other of the numnerous sugars investigated with the exception of laevulose, the effect of which was of the same kind but much less marked . It is thus rendered extremely probable that the action of dextrose in these experiments is a physiological one, of a nutritive character, and of the same nature as that exercised by the dextrose in the blood on the heart of the intact organism. This conclusion would obviously be materially strengthened if it were possible to show an actual disappearance of dextrose when perfused through the heart. The detailed results of our work in this direction are given in this paper-.Method. There could be no hope of demonstrating a consumption of dextrose by the cardiac muscle if the solution containing it were only perfused once through the heart. It was therefore necessary to devise a method in which a relatively small quantity of a saline solution of dextrose could be made to circulate repeatedly through the organ. It is obviously 1