VELOCITY OF REACTION. HOMOGENEOUS SYSTEMS 97 



Here the coincidence is nearly exact. In the cases in- 

 vestigated above, where the interval of temperature reached 

 only four degrees, a simple exponential formula would have 

 given just as good results as the more complicated one 

 adopted from physical chemistry ; but in this case the 

 interval of temperature is so great that the exponential 

 formula would have given a markedly inferior agreement 

 with the observations, though still the differences would 

 not have exceeded the errors of observation. 



It may be remarked that not all peptons exert this weak- 

 ening influence on tetanolysin ; for instance, Chapeautaud's 

 pepton is without influence in this respect. 



As a general result of these investigations we find that 

 the spontaneous destruction of the substances studied in- 

 creases in solution very rapidly with temperature. In 

 most cases the destruction of these substances by cata- 

 lytic agencies increases much more slowly, about at the 

 same rate as the catalytic processes studied in general 

 chemistry. 



The observed values of //. are compared in the following 

 table : 



Spontaneous destruction of dry emulsin /* = 26,300 



(Tammann) 



Spontaneous destruction of lipase from castor beans in sol. //, 26,000 



(Nicloux, cf. next chapter) 



Spontaneous destruction of emulsin in 0.5 per cent sol. /* = 45,000 



(Tammann) 



