BIOTIC STRUCTUKE AND BIOTIC ENERGY 11 



" Their peculiar physical aggregation with the chemical indifference 

 referred to appears to be required in substances that can intervene 

 in the organic processes of life. The plastic elements of the animal 

 body are found in this class. As gelatin appears to be its type, it 

 is proposed to designate substances of the class as colloids, and to 

 speak of their peculiar form of aggregation as the colloidal condition 

 of matter. Opposed to the colloidal is the crystalloidal condition. 

 Substances affecting the latter form will be classed as crystalloids. 

 The distinction is no doubt one of intimate molecular constitution. 



" Although chemically inert in the ordinary sense, colloids 

 possess a compensating activity of their own, arising out of their 

 physical properties. While the rigidity of the crystalline structure 

 shuts out external impressions, the softness of the gelatinous colloid 

 partakes of fluidity, and enables the colloid to become a medium 

 for liquid diffusion, like water itself. 



" Another and eminently characteristic quality of colloids 

 is their mutability. Their existence is a continued metastasis. 

 A colloid may be compared in this respect to water, while existing 

 liquid at a temperature under its usual freezing-point, or to a 

 supersaturated saline solution. Fluid colloids appear to have always 

 a pectous modification, and they often pass under the slightest 

 influences from the first into the second condition. 



" The colloidal is, in fact, a dynamical state of matter, the 

 crystalloidal being the statical condition. The colloid possesses 

 Energia. It may be looked upon as the probable primary source 

 of the force appearing in the phenomena of vitality. To the gradual 

 manner in which colloidal changes take place (for they always 

 demand time as an element) may the characteristic protraction of 

 chemico- organic changes also be referred." 



The importance of these slow energy changes in colloids referred 

 to in these words by Graham about fifty years ago, and the capa- 

 bility of their alteration in direction and travelling in new directions 

 on account of small changes in the crystalloidal environment, so 

 giving rise to phasic variations in the energy processes of the living 

 cell, are only now receiving somewhat tardily that attention and 

 further study which they so richly deserve. Many of the hidden 

 wonders of cell life undoubtedly are clustered around the 

 relationship of colloid and crystalloid. Variations in minute detail 

 of colloidal arrangement in itself and in relationship to dissolved 

 pabulum in the shape of organic and inorganic crystalloids lie at the 



