202 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE ORGANISM 



is used up first may be a question of physico-chemical 

 equilibrium. 



That is almost all l that is actually known of adaptation 

 with regard to the use of an abnormal food supply. Though 

 important, it cannot be said to be very much. But could we 

 expect very numerous regulations here at all after what we 

 laid down in a former paragraph about the possibilities of 

 adaptive regulation in general ? The functional state must 

 have been altered in order that such regulations may occur. 

 Now there is no doubt that this state may be really altered 

 only if an abnormal food has first been taken in altogether 

 by the cell-protoplasm of the body-surfaces, but never if it 

 has only entered the cavity of the intestine, which, strictly 

 speaking, is a part of the exterior medium. Fungi indeed 

 not only take in the abnormal food, but also know what to 

 do with it, but all animals are obliged to treat first with 

 their chemical secretions what happens to be present in 

 their intestine, in order that it may be taken up by their 

 living cells, and one hardly can wonder that these secretions 

 are only formed in correspondence to a limited number of 

 outside stimuli. In fact, as soon as we look upon what 

 adaptive or regulatory work happens in metabolism inside 

 the body interior, we meet, even in animals, regulations of a 

 far more developed type. 



Discoveries of the last few years have taught us that 

 almost all metabolic processes in the organism, including 

 oxidation, are carried out by the aid of special materials, the 



similar objection as to the "secondary" type of such a regulation may be 

 made. 



1 The discovery of Weinland that adult dogs are able to produce " lactase " 

 in their pancreas, whenever they are fed, quite abnormally, with milk-sugar, 

 has recently been said to be vitiated by an analytical mistake. 



