EXPERIMENTS NOW RECORDED 95 



kind of association of destructive and constructive 

 chemical changes. It has been shown by G. 

 Bertrand that even for the process of respiration 

 a ferment (oxydase) is necessary, to seize the 

 oxygen in the lungs, and hand it over to the red 

 corpuscles of the blood. It thus seems legitimate 

 to say, as Carl Snyder does in his New Concep- 

 tions in Science (1903, p. 234) : "In brief, for 

 every vital function a ferment. That is the latest 

 word of biological chemistry. In broader terms, 

 the sum of activities we collectively call cell-life is 

 a series of fermentations." And he adds: "We 

 may learn of the chemical synthesis of an enzyme 

 any day, and that will be but the prelude to 

 the manufacture of life in the laboratory." 



In reference to the chemical side of this latter 

 problem, it must be admitted that much light has 

 been shed upon it during the last half -century. 

 We know that protein compounds are the chief 

 constituents of protoplasm, while the synthetic 

 work of Emil Fischer, as well as investigations 

 on the physiology of digestion, have shown that 

 the proteins are, in turn, made up of compounds 

 known as amino-acids, and that these are repre- 

 sented by varying multiple associations of carbo- 

 hydrates, such as sugars, or formaldehyde (CEbO) 



