MODERNBIOLOGY 4°7 



discovery an element of pronounced '•vital- character had been produced 

 out of components that in their turn may be entirely produced out of simple, 

 inoreanic elements. This first synthesis of an organic element out of inor- 

 ganic components was naturally succeeded by countless others; organic chem- 

 fstry which at one time had been thought to embrace elements produced by 

 life and impossible to arrive at in any other way, thus became a chemistry of 

 the carbon^compounds, the unique character of which is due to the nature 

 of the elements with which it operates, but which otherwise has recourse 

 entirely to the methods and theories of general chemistry. The science ot 

 chemistry has thus become a knowledge of phenomena that are governed 

 throughout nature by the same laws, with the result that a new possibility 

 arose of combining separate phenomena under one common point of view. 



Indestructibility of energy 

 Op still more radical importance, however, was another discovery which 

 was made at a somewhat later date than that just mentioned and which led 

 to the well-known law of the indestructibility of energy. In earlier times 

 Leat was regarded as an element, a kind of 'fluid," like electricity and 

 although Lavoisier proved its imponderability, both he and his pupils re- 

 tained the ancient idea as to its essence. Gradually, however, attention was 

 once more attracted to the fact, known ever since ancient times, that heat 

 arises through friction, whence conclusions were drawn as to the connexion 

 between heat and mechanical action. The law-bound condition that arises 

 therein was elucidated in the forties by several investigators working on 

 the subject simultaneously and independently of one another - which only 

 proves how ripe for solution the problem really was. Although the phenome- 

 non falls entirely within the sphere of physics, there were, strangely enough 

 two scientists with an essentially biological training who played a deci ive 

 part in its solution, and this fact, as well as the impottance of the subject 

 in itself, justifies our going into it in somewhat greater detail. 



Touus Robert Mayer was born in .814 at Heilbronn the son of a well- 

 to-do apothecary. He studied medicine and, having passed his examinations 

 became a practitioner in his native town. He was seized, however, with a 

 d re to see something of the world and he succeeded in obtaining an ap- 

 ponment as a doctor on a Dutch vessel sailing to Java. Having returned 

 home, he once more settled down as a doctor in Heilbronn and died there 



'° ' Du'ting hTs'stay in Java Mayer had noticed that in venesection the blood 

 in the veins was of a far lighter colour than that in Europe. He star ed ou 

 to discover the reason for this and finally came to the conclusion that the 

 metabolism in the body is dependent on the temperature "f/^e "mosphe e, 

 the warmer the temperature, the weaker the conversion of subs ance is re- 

 qu ird to be in order that the body may perform its normal functions 



