58 THE PROTEOMORPHIC THEORY AND THE NEW MEDICINE 



associated contraction due to the arrangement of the cells in the 

 muscle-fiber sheath, is the tangible aggregate result. When the 

 ammo-acid molecules are recompounded into larger protein 

 molecules, their number and consequently their osmotic pressure 

 are correspondingly reduced, and the muscle relaxes. 



Whatever the force of this parenthetical suggestion, however, 

 it is certain that osmotic action explains many of the funda- 

 mental processes of assimilation. It should be added, however, 

 that in a comprehensive view, the character of the cell wall itself 

 must not be overlooked. The permeability of this is an impor- 

 tant consideration ; and it has been found that the nature of the 

 medium in which it lies, notably with reference to mineral salts, 

 may greatly modify this permeability. At the moment, however, 

 this aspect of the subject need not be examined in detail. 



It is obvious that our primitive bit of protoplasm, under the 

 shifting conditions of osmosis, expanding and contracting as por- 

 tions of its protein content are dissociated and re-formed, may 

 have acquired, by virtue of this principle alone, a certain function 

 of primitive motion. Granted a group of unstable carbon-nitro- 

 gen compounds encased in a cell wall, we have a primitive organ- 

 ism which may manifest the fundamental conditions of assimila- 

 tion and excretion. 



The precise chemical composition of the cell-content making up 

 the body of this living organism, in connection with its funda- 

 mental proteins, will depend upon the chemical composition of 

 the medium in which it lives, and from which it absorbs matter, 

 and into which it excretes residual matter. And in any case 

 in which the mechanism of absorption and excretion of a given 

 cell-laboratory has reached a status of equilibrium, the intrusion 

 of any new chemical substance into the medium must serve as a 

 disturbing element. 



Suppose that this disturbing element takes the form of another 

 organism, which has been accustomed to a different medium, and 

 hence which has developed a somewhat different chemical com- 

 position, to the extent at least of modifying the side-chains of its 

 protein molecule. Then, in the nature of the case, there must 

 be a certain antagonism between the two organisms. Each, 

 through its excretions, modifies somewhat the character of the 

 medium, and makes it in a sense an abnormal medium for the 

 other. Unless both organisms are able to modify somewhat their 

 previous mode of existence, finding a way either to assimilate 

 or to neutralize the abnormal elements now introduced into the 

 medium, they cannot survive. 



If either of them does survive, that fact is proof positive 

 that the organism in question has found a way to adapt itself 

 to the new conditions. It has so adjusted and modified the 



