[nicholls] medicine AND OTHER NATURAL SCIENCES 11 



This discovery of the hormones gives us an entirely new conception of 

 secretion, doing away largely with the older notion of a nervous origin. 

 It marks a notable advance in our knowledge and opens up interesting 

 possibilities in the way of the treatment of disease. 



From what I have said, it will be gathered that the researches of 

 chemists, biological chemists, phj'siologists, and physicists, have together 

 given us a new and altogether more adequate conception of the mystery 

 of the animal body. On this foundation we are enabled to build a 

 more exact theory of disease, and apply more rational methods of 

 therapeusis. Medicine, it is not unfair to say, has been transformed 

 from an art into a science. Old hypotheses have been tested, definite 

 laws have been formulated, the mechanism of disease is much better 

 understood, and many new and efficacious lines of treatment have been 

 opened up. 



From the clearly predominant position taken by chemical processes 

 in connection with the manifestations of vital or, as Moore would call 

 it, "biotic" energy it is not surprising that a school of physiologists 

 should have arisen who consider that life can be adequately understood 

 and exjoressed in chemical formulœ. To such, the creation of life in the 

 laboratory is not an impossibility. In fact, some notable men, like 

 Prof, Schàfer and our own Prof. Macallum, have recently expressed 

 the thought that the creation of life in some humble form may, not 

 unlikely, be looked for in the near future. And, indeed, there is some- 

 thing to be said for this idea. Some of the amino-acids, like alanin, 

 giycocoll, leucin, and asparagin, have been prepared synthetically. 

 They give the biuret reaction for protein and may be regarded as the 

 nearest relatives of the peptones. From this it would seem but a step 

 to the synthetic production of the more complex molecule of protoplasm. 

 For a time, too, differences in regard to their behaviour with light 

 were held to differentiate substances isolated from organic material and 

 the analogous ones prepared artificially. But Fischer has been aljle 

 to prepare such bodies optically active or inactive at will, and such 

 distinction no longer holds good. Even something very like ferment 

 action may be manifested by inorganic substances, such, for instance, 

 as the pure metals, gold, silver, platinum, iridium, and the metallic 

 oxides. Yet, this is not an invariable rule. Life seems to be essential 

 in some cases. The classical instance of the transformation of sugar 

 into water, alcohol, and CO 2 is a case in point. The yeast cell produces 

 a ferment, invertase, which converts maltose into glucose. The further 

 decomposition of the latter into alcohol is only possible in the presence 

 of living cells. Without final proofs, the actual creation of living 

 matter, it is at least premature to adopt the attitude of the materialistic 

 philosopher. Yet, in these days of marvels, it would be unwise to say 



Sec. IV, 1913—1 



