ZYMOLOGY FERMENTS AND FERMENTATIONS 211 



others, ascribed fermentation to an internal activity or motion of fer- 

 menting substances, resulting in a splitting up of the molecules. 



Not until the epoch-making researches of Lavoisier (1789) and those 

 of his follower Gay-Lussac (1815) did we have any knowledge of the "part 

 played by the element O in fermentations and in other life processes. 

 Lavoisier explained very clearly the familiar vinous fermentation in 

 which sugar underwent a chemical splitting process, resulting in the for- 

 mation of alcohol and carbonic acid gas. The name of Liebig (1865) 

 is most intimately associated with the subject of fermentation, as are 

 also the names of Schwann (1837) and Pasteur (1857). Liebig pro- 

 mulgated the theory, which was soon generally accepted, that fermenta- 

 tion was a decomposition process of a chemical nature, which when once 

 initiated in the fermentable substance was capable of being transmitted 

 from molecule to molecule, until the entire mass had undergone a change. 

 Liebig insisted that the fermentation processes were entirely chemical 

 but Dumas, Schwann, Pasteur and others, soon demonstrated that this 

 was not the case, that fermentation was induced by a special organic 

 substance, the ferment, which was formed by living organisms and which 

 had the power of causing a special molecular disturbance or catalytic 

 action in organic substances, resulting in the formation of new compounds. 



Since Schwann and Pasteur, a host of investigators have studied 

 fermentation processes, in an effort to determine the chemistry, biology 

 and physiology of ferments or enzymes. We may mention a few of the 

 leading investigators, as Cagniard-Latour (1835), Naegeli (1879), Loew, 

 Hansen (1883), de Bary, A. Mayer, Hoppe-Seyler, Hiifner, Arrhenius, 

 Oppenheimer (1900), Jorgensen (1909) and others. Within recent years 

 the work that has been done on special ferments and fermentation processes 

 and on the commercial use and application of ferments, has indeed as- 

 sumed colossal proportions. To merely prepare a review of the workers 

 and their work would require many years of careful labor. 



It is known that organic substances, in fact all substances, gradually 

 undergo a catalytic change. In the case of minerals and rock formations 

 this change is indeed slow, whereas in organic substances the change is 

 comparatively rapid. The chief influence of ferments is to hasten the 

 catalytic changes in organic substances. Therefore, enzymes do not 

 initiate any catalytic changes which would not sooner or later take place 

 without ferments. This fact has been the cause of much speculation as to 

 the intrinsic properties of enzymes in their relationship to the cells which 

 form them and to the substances which they are capable of catalyzing. 

 The rate of catalysis in substances, even those of an organic nature, 

 without the action of ferments is, however, largely speculation and for 

 our present purpose does not require further consideration. 



