19. On Oxidation, Fermentation, and Cancer 



Of the two biological energy-producing mechanisms no thought 

 was given in this book to fermentation because there is no reason 

 to suppose that E* is involved in this process which consists, 

 essentially, in coupling phosphate to carbohydrate and then re- 

 arranging the H and O atoms within the molecule in such a way 

 that the energies inside the molecule are shifted and the originally 

 "low-energ)^" P — O — P becomes a ~P which is then transmitted 

 to other molecules, such as ATP, and aliments biological action. 

 Fermentation, essentially, is a series of group transfer reactions 

 which belong to the realm of classical chemistry, the energies 

 generated being bond energies. 



Contrar)' to this, biological oxidation is the utilization of the 

 thermodynamic potential between H and O and we were led to 

 suppose that in this process £* plays a role, energy being liberated 

 and transferred at certain points in the form of electronic excita- 

 tion. We were also led to suppose that this electronic excitation 

 has specific forms which were probable only within the water 

 structures which the protoplasm generates around itself, the elec- 

 trons forming triplets. We have also seen that the role of Oo, in 

 this process, is not limited to acting as the final electron acceptor 

 but that the oxygen, by means of the perturbations of the electro- 

 magnetic field, greatly influences the reactivity, i.e., the transition 

 probabilities of one of the central members of the oxidative chain. 

 Transition probabilities of triplets greatly depend on the perturba- 

 tions of the electromagnetic field and so have to depend on the 

 perturbations caused by O2. But the triplets themselves also cause 

 such a perturbation, which can be expected to influence the for- 

 mation and reactions of other triplets. Aerobic cell life has thus as 



133 



