166 OXIDATION-REDUCTION POTENTIALS 



in recent work by Harington. Advances in our knowledge of diabetes have already 

 shown us the possibilities of complex interhormonal control. 



Antibiotics are rapidly becoming mere chemotherapeutic drugs now that 

 Chloromycetin has been synthesised, and chemotherapeutic drugs have already become 

 metabolite analogues. Unless we are vigilant the gulf will widen between the general 

 practitioner who prescribes the tablet and the laboratory worker who studies a dye 

 that inhibits an enzyme that destroys a coenzyme that is necessary for the functioning 

 of an enzyme system that is part of a chain of processes in the brain. The complexities 

 of each speciahty are multiplying so rapidly that it is not easy to ensure that members 

 of research teams are working intelhgently. It is not sufficient that senior members 

 of the team should supply all the intellectual stimulus, leaving it to the junior members 

 to be cogs on a wheel. For the maximum effect all should be mental as well as 

 physical contributors. It is desirable that workers in the biological sciences should 

 have as wide an understanding as possible of advances in other discipUnes, and the 

 problem of keeping up-to-date with scientific literature is becoming more formidable 

 month by month. When the original literature became too bulky abstract journals 

 solved the problem temporarily, and when these became too swollen Annual Reviews 

 and Recent Advances proved a boon to research workers. These are now themselves 

 so numerous and well filled that the rapid production of books summarising and 

 co-ordinating recent advances is necessary and the debt owed to the compilers of 

 stimulating scientific books is very considerable, since the labour and leisure devoted 

 to their preparation cannot easily be spared. In previous chapters, therefore, full 

 advantage has been taken of the ideas of many brains and although due acknowledg- 

 ment of contributions to our understanding of biological phenomenon cannot be 

 counted upon, the contributor of a valuable point of view has, at least, the satisfaction 

 of feeling that he has permanently affected the course of investigations. The close 

 interweaving of experiment and interpretation with ideas from as broad fields as 

 possible is the best guarantee of rapid progress and the saving of waste labour and 

 time in pursuing fruitless quests. 



Although widely divergent topics have been incorporated in the later chapters of 

 this book, the unifying influence of the effect of oxidation-reduction conditions on 

 biological functions impresses a pattern on the complex of data. 



Biological electrode potentials have received an increasing amount of attention 

 from investigators. Quantitative data are accumulating and interpretations of 

 experimental results are becoming accepted as necessary accompaniments to 

 progress. There was, a very few years ago, a great danger of stagnation and 

 immobilisation, owing to the feeling on the one hand that experimental data could 

 not be obtained until the theoretical side was in a more advanced stage of develop- 

 ment, and, on the other hand, that no theories could be developed until more data 

 had accumulated. The danger of stalemate was a very real one, but, fortunately, 

 the subject has now opened out, and advantage can be taken of assistance forth- 

 coming from very different directions. 



Notwithstanding the initial difficulties, most encouraging progress has been made 

 in the study of biological oxidation-reduction conditions, particularly in the realm 

 of bacteriology, and it is remarkable how well deductions drawn from electrode 

 potential measurements agree with the conclusions reached by workers proceeding 

 along totally different avenues of approach. 



