130 GENERAL CONCLUSIONS 



of exchange and in the passage between sol and gel, every 

 stabilization of one or the other of these states results in 

 more or less severe disturbances of stabilization which in 

 turn, depend upon the dose and preparation of the stabilizing 

 agent. 



The biochemical experience of Loewe, of which the true 

 significance has been brought to light by the studies of Ame 

 Pictet on the life and death of plasma, definitely confirm 

 these ideas and allow us to understand the probable chemical 

 mechanism. Loewe found that those substances which are 

 poisonous for living plasma and exercise no appreciable 

 action on dead albumin, act chemically by transforming 

 unstable linear compounds into relatively stable, cylic com- 

 pounds and Pictet drew from this work the conclusion con- 

 firmed by new and very ingenious experiments that it was 

 this chemical stabilization added to the durable stabilization 

 of a certain state of biologic equilibrium which might be the 

 cause of a pathologic state of the plasma of the cell and of its 

 death. 



It may be that as, for example, in the case of mercury 

 salts and certain venins by acting not on the molecule but 

 on the "micelle," the same product produces the stabiliza- 

 tion of the colloid in various forms: gel, sol, etc., according to 

 the quantity or the proportion of the product which is fixed : 

 and that the rupture of equilibrium in certain "micelles" 

 will in a sense, necessarily result in a contrary reaction in 

 other "micelles." 



All substances, salts as well as colloids, may disturb vital 

 functions, that is to say, the functions of nutrition of colloids, 

 and hence of the cells by virtue of their being in solution in 

 the interior of the organism and of possessing affinities for 

 the substances which compose the cells. 



From the chemical point of view these substances can be 

 divided into two great groups those which are nutritive and 

 those which are not. In the first category will belong all the 

 substances which normally enter into the composition of the 

 organism; in the second those of which analysis shows no 

 trace. The alimentary composition of all organisms is very 

 uniform but the relative proportions in which the different 

 elements are found differ infinitely. 



