Arndt-Schulz Law

ARNDT-SCHULZ LAW (Arndt, Schulz). In 1883, Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Greifswald Rudolf Arndt, based on abstract reasoning, extended the provisions of Pflii-ger's law regarding the effect of an ascending galvanic current on muscle to all irritations, subsequently giving these provisions the status of a basic biological law - biologisches Grundgesetz, according to which weak irritations awaken the activity of living elements, medium ones intensify it, strong ones inhibit it, and very strong ones paralyze it. In 1892 and 1895, Arndt published "Biologische Studien" in two parts, seeking to substantiate his law on the basis of various diverse biological manifestations. In 1887, Professor of Pharmacology at the same University of Greifswald Hugo Schulz published an article in which he expressed similar positions regarding medications, whose effect on an organ depends on the dose, showing complete similarity with the effect of current according to Pflii-ger's law (2nd position of Schulz), while in certain pathological states, a significantly smaller dose is required to obtain an effect (3rd position of Schulz). In 1888, Schulz's work on the effect of poisons on yeast appeared, in which the author provides experimental confirmation of his positions and at the same time gives them a more general formulation, according to which the exciting effect of any irritation on the vital activity of any cell is inversely proportional to the strength of the irritation. Subsequent research showed that the A.-S. law is applicable not only to biology, where it has very wide application, but it is also subject to a number of physicochemical colloidal processes, such as, for example, the coagulation of gelatin under various conditions, its swelling, the effect of catalysts on catalytic and enzymatic processes, etc. In view of the fact that cells represent very complex colloidal systems, the manifestations of whose life depend on the physicochemical changes occurring in them, it should be recognized that the A.-S. law concerns the very foundations of the life process. However, many facts interpreted by the authors of the law in question as its manifestations subsequently received a completely different scientific justification. At the same time, it was quite rightly pointed out that the often observed opposite effect when using large and small irritations (resp. large and small doses of poisons) depends not on the distortion of the same process, but on the emergence along with the exciting process of a second - inhibitory one, which has a completely different mechanism at its base. Thus, the decrease in muscle contraction with increasing ascending closing current - a phenomenon that served as the starting point for Arndt and Schulz - depends not on the decrease in the irritating effect of the stronger current (in the area of catelectroton), but on the decrease in conductivity in the nerve (in the area of anelectroton). Furthermore, the excitation of certain parts of the body observed with small doses of medication may be indirectly due to the paralyzing effect on other (inhibitory) parts. With large doses, however, inhibition also spreads to the parts indirectly excited with small doses. Such is the excitation and inhibition with alcohol. Therefore, while generally recognizing the correctness of the A.-S. law, especially for minimal effective and large, already paralyzing irritations (doses), it is hardly possible to agree with the above precise mathematical formulation of the law proposed by Schulz. Interest in the A.-S. law has particularly increased in recent years, after Bier's article "How should we relate to homeopathy?" again intensified the discussion of homeopathy, to which the biological law of Arndt-Schulz is most closely related. Lit.: Arndt R., Lehrbuch d. Psychiatrie, Wien- Lpz., 1883; his same, Biologische Studien, I. Bio-logisches Grundgesetz, 1892, II. Artung u. Entartung, Greifswald, 1895; Schulz H., Zur Lehre der Arznei-wirkung, Virchows Archiv, B. CVIII, p. 423, 1887; Traube I., Kolloidchemische Betrachtungen iiber Probleme der Homoopathie, Munch, med. Woch., 1925, № 34, p. 1422; Handowsky H., Das Arndt-Schulzsche biologische Gesetz, Munch, med. Woch., 1925, № 16, p. 652; Bier A., Wie sollen wir uns zu der Homoopathie stellen, Munch, med. Woch., 1925, №18, p. 713, № 19, p. 773.