toplasmic structure should not be entirely dissociated 

 from the study of atomic structure. The same dynamic 

 "ether" which must be assumed to circulate through 

 each atom of matter to bind its parts together probably 

 also circulates through the protoplasmic system of every 

 living organism so as to give it centralized control over 

 biological activities, and unity of consciousness. 



It is not so much the prevailing nuclear theory of 

 atomic structure which is significant in this respect, nor 

 the classical vortex theory of the 19th century, but rather 

 the new vortex theory which was first introduced by Her- 

 mann Fricke in Berlin, and was later developed in de- 

 tail by the writer (C. F. Krafft in Washington, D. C). 

 The classical vortex theory of the 19th century was a 

 failure because it tried to proceed with the erroneous as- 

 sumption that the ether is entirely frictionless and that 

 adjacent vortex filaments would have no effect upon one 

 another. The new vortex theory of Fricke and Krafft 

 assumes that the ether has quasi-frictional properties by 

 virtue of which not its energy but its direction of flow 

 is affected. More specifically, this new vortex theory 

 assumes that adjacent vortex filaments must have roll- 

 ing contact in order to form stable configurations. 



A complete presentation of this new vortex theory can- 

 not be attempted here, but certain details will have to be 

 explained because of their relation to protein chemical 

 structure. It is the structure of the nitrogen atom and 

 the form of the valence bond that we are particularly 

 concerned with in the study of living matter. The new 

 vortex theory has shown that the nitrogen atom always 

 has three primary valence bonds, not uniformly dis- 

 tributed, but all on one side of the atom — a fact which 

 has been established independently on the basis of purely 

 experimental evidence. Tetravalent and pentavalent ni- 

 trogen are produced by branching or bifurcation of one 

 or the other of these primary valence bonds. In quanti- 



