COORDINATION 57 



organism must be harmonized with those of all other regions; 

 the principle of interaction may apply at a distance and the 

 results may not be contemporaneous. This is actually inferred 

 to be the case in single-celled organisms, such as the Amoeba} 



The interacting and coordinating form of lifeless energy 

 which has proved to be of the utmost importance in the life 

 processes is that recognized in the early part of the nineteenth 

 century and denoted by the term catalysis, first applied by 

 Berzelius in 1835. A catalyzer is a substance which modifies 

 the velocity of any chemical reaction without itself being 

 used up by the reaction. Thus chemical reactions may be 

 accelerated or retarded, and yet the catalyzer lose none of 

 its energy. In a few cases it has been definitely ascertained 

 that the catalytic agent does itself experience a series of 

 changes. The theory is that catalytic phenomena depend 

 upon the alternate decomposition and recomposition, or the 

 alternate attachment and detachment of the catalytic agent. 



Discovered as a property in the inorganic world, catalysis 

 has proved to underlie the great series of functions in the 

 organic world which may be comprised in the physical term 

 interaction. The researches of Ehrlich and others fully justify 

 Huxley's prediction of 1881 that through therapeutics it would 

 become possible "to introduce into the economy a molecular 

 mechanism which, like a cunningly contrived torpedo, shall 

 find its way to some particular group of living elements and 

 cause an explosion among them, leaving the rest untouched." 

 In fact, the interacting agents known as "enzymes" are such 

 living catalyzers,- and accelerate or retard reactions in the 

 body by forming intermediary unstable compounds which are 

 rapidly decomposed, leaving the catalyzer (/. c, enzyme) free 

 to repeat the action. Thus a small quantity of an enzyme 



' Calkins, Gary N., 1916, pp. 259, 260. - Loeb, Jacques, 1906, pp. 26, 28. 



