AN INTRODUCTION 



TO 



BACTERIOLOGICAL AND ENZYME 

 CHEMISTRY 



CHAPTER I 



THE CHARACTERISTICS OF CHEMICAL ACTION IN 

 LIVING MATTER 



THE student of chemistry must always be impressed with the 

 extraordinary ease with which complicated chemical changes 

 take place in living matter. By comparison the methods 

 used in the laboratory to effect the artificial preparation of 

 natural products appear cumbersome and violent. 



Thus, e.g., to take a fairly simple case, the colouring 

 matter alizarine is produced in the madder plant under 

 natural conditions of growth ; at temperatures, that is, 

 much below the boiling-point of water and without the 

 production of any excessive alkalinity or acidity. 



To prepare this substance artificially a hydrocarbon an- 

 thracene is made use of, itself produced by the distillation of 

 coal tar at a high temperature. This is first violently oxidised 

 by reagents such as bichromate of potash and glacial acetic 

 acid ; the resulting oxidised product anthraquinone is then 

 dissolved in concentrated acid, the sulphonic acid so obtained 



