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re. the comment by John Gibbon that the critical volume hyposthesis has 
"pretty much been disproved".  Again, I am not up on this literature but I 
think this statement is probably in the context of anaesthesia theory as it 
applies to slightly more complex (and effective -therefore of clinical 
interest) gaseous anaesthetics.  As I recall, the debate has to do with 
whether there is general lipid solublity in the lipid membrane or whether 
there is a binding site for the anaesthetic on a membrane protein.  Optical 
enantiomers (same lipid solubility) sometimes have different anaesthetic 
properties (suggesting some specificity in binding to a protein receptor).   
Thus, for some anaesthetics, binding to protein probably plays a role. As far 
as I know, this does not apply to compounds of as simple a structure as the 
nitrogen molecule.    Pierre Morell

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