442 



SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



42. 



Anabolism 

 and Cata- 

 bolism. 



The reverse occurs in the green plant cells. In a word, 

 of the two movements, that of descent is preponderant 

 in the animal, that of ascent in the vegetable." No one 

 has done greater service to the fixing of our ideas on 

 this subject than Dr Gaskell when he analysed the 

 whole process, called " Metabolism " by Professor Michael 

 Foster after Schwann, into the two complementary pro- 

 cesses of Anabolism the upward, and Catabolism the 

 downward, movement the winding up and running 

 down of the clock, the preparation and loading of the 

 explosive and the discharge of the gun. 1 



1 The introduction of these terms 

 is, however, connected with a 

 special view differing somewhat 

 from that suggested by the formula 

 of Claude Bernard which is now 

 very generally adopted in text- 

 books of physiology. Prof. Burdon 

 Sanderson has given a lucid state- 

 ment of this difference in his 

 Address, entitled " Elementary 

 Problems of Physiology," before 

 the Brit. Assoc. in 1889 (' Report,' 

 p. 613). He there says : "A char- 

 acteristic of living process ... is 

 that it is a constantly recurring 

 alternation of opposite and comple- 

 mentary states, that of activity or 

 discharge, that of rest or restitu- 

 tion. Is it so or is it not ? In the 

 minds of most physiologists the 

 distinction between the phenomena 

 of discharge and the phenomena 

 of restitution (Erholung) is funda- 

 mental, but beyond this unanimity 

 ceases. Two distinguished men 

 Prof. Hering and Dr Gaskell 

 have taken, upon independent 

 grounds, a different view to the 

 one above suggested, according to 

 which life consists not of alterna- 

 tions between rest and activity, 

 charge and discharge, loading and 

 exploding, but between two kinds 

 of activity, two kinds of explosion, 



which differ only in the direction 

 in which they act, in the circum- 

 stance that they are antagonistic to 

 each other. Now, when we com- 

 pare the two processes of rest . . . 

 and discharge . . . with each other, 

 they may further be distinguished 

 in this respect, that whereas resti- 

 tution is autonomic, the other jis 

 occasional i.e., takes place only at 

 the suggestion of external influ- 

 ences. . . . It is in accordance with 

 the analogy between the alternation 

 of waking and sleeping of the whole 

 organism, and the corresponding 

 alternation of restitution and dis- 

 charge, of every kind of living 

 substance, that physiologists by 

 common consent use the word 

 stimulus (Reiz), meaning thereby 

 nothing more than that it is by 

 external disturbing or interfering 

 influence of some kind that energies 

 stored in living material are dis- 

 charged. Now, if I were to main- 

 tain that restitution is not auto- 

 nomic, but determined, as waking is, 

 by an external stimulus, that it 

 differed from waking only in the 

 direction in which the stimulus 

 acts i.e., in the tendency towards 

 construction on the one hand, 

 towards destruction on the other 

 I should fairly and as clearly as 



