Author's Note 



My interest in minerals, plants, and animals goes back to my early boyhood. 

 When I entered the College of the City of New York in 1891, it was my good fortune 

 to be introduced to physics and chemistry by Professor Robert Ogden Doremus, 

 and to botany, zoology, geology and paleontology by Professors Ivan Sickels and Wil- 

 liam Stratford. My thanks are due to these teachers and their assistants, who made 

 science so interesting that my initial leanings toward it were quickened and ex- 

 tended. The fact that my college courses were very broad rather than specialized 

 gave me a wider point of view than I might otherwise have acquired; so that when 

 I graduated in 1896 and took up technological work instead of being able to realize 

 an ambition to become a physician, I was able to continue my scientific studies 

 alone. 



In the spring of 1899 I submitted for my degree of Master of Science a thesis* 

 entitled "The Importance and Trend of Recent Work on the Chemistry of Life and 

 the Products of Life," which indicates my early interest in the matters dealt with 

 in this volume — an interest excited largely by the then recent (1895) isolation of 

 zymase from yeast by Buchner. The opening paragraph of this thesis, with a few 

 others, are given below. These views were advanced fifty years ago, on the basis of 

 some of the comparatively slim evidence then available. 



"Recent work on the chemistry of life, and its products, has thrown much light 

 upon vital or physiologic phenomena, and has given us no uncertain insight into the 

 nature of life itself. I intend to review briefly part of this work, taking up first 

 ferments and enzymes, and the nature of their action. The discussion of these cell- 

 products leads the way to the second topic — cells and microorganisms, and the 

 nature of their life. . . . 



"Buchner's discovery (of zymase) is strong and almost conclusive evidence in favor 

 of the view of Berthelot and Hoppe-Seyler [that organisms produce chemical sub- 

 stances which cause fermentation], and is of the utmost importance because it helps 

 to break down a false barrier which had been erected between physiology and 

 chemistry. Physiological laws are chemical laws, however great their complexity; 

 and matter is bound by these same laws, be it organic or inorganic, living or dead. 

 As a vital function fermentation must always be mysterious and inscrutable, while 

 as a chemical process it is susceptible of explanation. 



"It appears then that all fermentations are purely chemical changes brought 

 about by substances which usually are highly complex and highly nitrogenous, 

 as analysis shows. To confirm this assumption more fully, work should be done 

 along the lines laid down by Buchner, and the active enzymes should be isolated 

 from all fermentative microorganisms. In the meanwhile we may examine into 

 the nature of the chemical action that takes place. 



"There are numerous reactions which go by the name of continuous processes. 



The decomposition of the diazo-compounds by cuprous salts (Sandmyer's reaction) 



is a case in point. It proceeds according to the equation 



C fl H 5 N :N :R+Cu 2 R 2 =C 8 H B R+N 2 +Cu 2 R 2 



so that the process is theoretically continuous. The cuprous salt acts the part of a 



carrier or "go-between," just as do iodine, ferric chloride, aluminum chloride and 



* A short excerpt from this unpublished thesis appears in a paper written jointly with Dr. 

 Calvin B. Bridges, entitled "Some Physico-Chemical Aspects of Life, Mutation, and Evolution," 

 published in Vol. II, of series "Colloid Chemistry, Theoretical and Applied," edited by Jerome 

 Alexander, Reinhold Publishing Corp., N. Y., 1928. 



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