CHEMICAL PHENOMENA IN LIFE 



poisonous effects of alcohols, generally called 

 Richardson's Law, that the higher members of the 

 series of alcohols are more poisonous than the lower 

 ones, was connected with the capillary properties 

 or the surface tension of the alcohols. The German 

 chemist proved that the surface activity of the 

 alcohols increases from one member to the following 

 one in the same series in the ratio 1:3. A glance 

 at the results obtained by Overton and others on 

 the poisonous effects of alcohols immediately 

 showed Traube that the toxic effect increases in the 

 same proportion. The law of surface activity 

 and Richardson's Law must therefore be the same. 

 Later on, corresponding facts were found in the 

 class of esters, but exclusively in the members 

 of an homologous series of organic compounds. 



When I studied the toxic effects of organic 

 solutions on plant cells I noticed that the exos- 

 mosis of substances from the cell vacuole, con- 

 sequently the death of cells, regularly took place 

 when the surface tension of the solution had reached 

 the same degree. Most plant cells are injured and 

 die when a solution is applied which has the 

 surface tension of about two-thirds relatively to 

 that of water. No alcohol, no ether nor narcotic 

 has been found which did not affect the cell in a 

 solution of such a surface activity. But all sub- 

 stances of the most different chemical character 

 began to injure the cell just when the surface 

 tension had reached the critical point. Since all 

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