59 4 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



It is readily conceivable that the earliest "organic milieu" 

 was therefore a solution of carbonates, and the earliest of the 

 ferments may have been therefore a combination of organic 

 substances with, probably, a metal, able to promote the 

 dissociation of the carbonate and the assimilation or union 

 of the carbon with water or with peroxide of hydrogen, which 

 is, as the researches of W. Lob and others indicate, perhaps 

 an intermediary substance in all carbohydrate syntheses. 



Whether the "nascent" carbohydrate is itself an enzyme 

 or ferment for the assimilation of nitrogen from ammonia or 

 other nitrogen compound, or whether here again a special 

 enzyme intervenes, is as yet unknown. But the demonstration 

 that ammonia is formed in quantity in volcanic action gives 

 us every reason to suppose that these substances were originally 

 present in sufficient concentration for the further synthesis of 

 nitrogen compounds to amino acids to proceed. 



There remains for consideration another substance which 

 so far as we know is unconditionally necessary to vital chemism. 

 This is phosphorus, or rather phosphoric acid. O. Loew l has 

 shown that some primitive organisms may continue to live, but 

 do not divide, in the total absence of phosphorus supply. The 

 high percentage of phosphoric acid in the nucleins, the decisive 

 role of the nucleins in cell-division, and its apparent prevalence 

 in organic ferments, is further evidence of the importance of 

 this element ; and J. Loeb 2 has recently shown that the rate 

 of nuclein synthesis in the fertilised egg increases in proportion 

 to the number of nuclei already present. 



Whether the synthesis of carbon and nitrogen, that is to 

 say, of carbohydrates and amino acids, may be realised in the 

 absence of organic compounds containing phosphorus is not 

 as yet clear. It is certain, however, that one of the earliest 

 stages in the complication of living substance is the phos- 

 phorisation of amino acids, that is to say, the formation of 

 nucleins. The conditions for this addition have already been 

 noted. The action of carbon dioxide on a phosphatic rock 

 like apatite gives precisely such a solution of carbonates and 

 phosphoric acid as would here be required. In the light 

 of Loeb's results, with the formation of nucleins, substances 



1 Chcm. Energie d. lebenden Zellen, p. 19, 1906. 



a Boston address: Science, 26, 425, 1907. Befruchtungsvorgangs. Leipzig, 

 1908. 



