SOAPS, PROTEIN DERIVATIVES AND TISSUES 235 



11 



ON THE THEORY OF POISONING BY AMMONIUM 

 COMPOUNDS AND BY HEAVY METALS 



1. General Remarks 



If we may apply to protoplasm the conclusions which have 

 been reached in the previous pages it seems safe to us to say that 

 the foundation of living matter is a polymerized amino-(fatty)- 

 acid to which normally are joined various bases (like potassium, 

 sodium, magnesium and calcium) and various acid radicals (like 

 chlorid, bromid, bicarbonate, sulphate and phosphate) the whole 

 constituting a unit l capable of sucking up or " dissolving " a 

 certain amount of water. It is in other words a basic-protein- 

 acid compound in which water has been dissolved. Even the 

 blood and the lymph have this colloid-chemical constitution. 

 The secretions from the body, on the other hand, represent the 

 opposite type of system the urine and sweat, for example, are 

 essentially " solutions " of protoplasmic material in water. 



It is of interest now to study this hyd rated protoplasmic mass 

 (tissue and blood) to see what changes it may suffer when other 

 than the normal bases or acids are introduced into it or the pro- 

 portions of these constituents to each other are varied from the 

 normal. Proper answer here has much to do with our funda- 

 mental theories of the physiology and pathology of cell behavior 

 and of pharmacological action 



1 From cori>t;uit repetition in colloid-chemical, physiological and pharma- 

 cological action the grouping may be expressed approximately as follows: 



/NH 

 s COOH( K 



