vi INTRODUCTION 



though the composite terms "biochemistry" and "biophysics" indi- 

 cate that they have "holed through," it is no simple task to make a 

 perfect joining of the two shafts. 



Our endeavor will force us to consider facts in many scientific 

 fields which, for pedagogical convenience, are usually separated 

 into different areas or disciplines, whose frontiers are often jeal- 

 ously guarded or at least respected by teachers. Naturally no 

 attempt is made to give a complete picture of any field or to 

 include every aspect or detail having a bearing on the problem. 

 Since What is right? is a more important question than Who was 

 first? no attempt will be made to settle questions of priority. Nor 

 is it possible to refer to all pertinent publications; it frequently 

 happens that the same ideas are independently reached by several 

 investigators, and the literature is so vast that reference can be 

 made to only a few publications in the many fields considered. 



The last half century has seen such fundamental advances in 

 science that text-books in actual use are often far behind. This 

 institutional time lag requires alertness on the part of teachers if 

 their students are to be kept properly informed. And graduates 

 must remember that no college or university degree stops the 

 progress of science. It is hoped that some of the details included 

 here will prove interesting and helpful to those who, for any 

 reason, have failed to become acquainted with them, or with their 

 interrelations. This interest may stimulate readers to seek out 

 more detailed reviews in the various fields, and thus be led to the 

 multitude of researches reported in scientific journals throughout 

 the world. 



Newton, with true humility, said that he was able to see so far 

 because he stood on the shoulders of giants. The real scientific 

 spirit is not exemplified by the few more selfish but less worthy 

 scientists who, basking in the spotlight of ephemeral publicity, 

 forget or ignore what they owe to dead or even to contemporary 

 colleagues. As the great Lord Rutherford so well said in his last 

 address: "... it is not in the nature of things for any one man to 

 make a sudden violent discovery; science goes step by step, and 

 every man depends on the work of his predecessors. When you 

 hear of a sudden unexpected discovery — a bolt from the blue, as it 

 were — you can always be sure that it has grown up by the influence 

 of one man on another, and it is this influence which makes the 

 enormous possibility of scientific advance. Scientists are not 

 dependent upon the ideas of a single man, but on the combined 



