Effect of Anaesthetics on Emission of Light by Luminous Bacteria

IN measuring anaesthetic potency it is difficult to establish accurately definable end points and to correlate data relating to differing end points in differing species. Other problems in higher animals are the control of the experimental conditions such as temperature and the number of factors affecting uptake and distribution of the anaesthetic agent. It would be desirable to have some easily measured biochemical process whose rate is affected by anaesthetic agents and which would give more information about the action of the agent than the usual methods which provide quantal data only, that is, the percentage of animals or organisms in a group which exhibit a particular “all or none” response such as death, loss of righting reflex or reaction to standard stimulus.