Jantjabt 14, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



51 



soeiated in water because a gram molecule 

 of it added to a liter of water produces a 

 solution that has a higher boiling point 

 than the solution obtained by adding a 

 gram molecule of sugar to a liter of water. 

 We should rather hold that the higher 

 boiling point of the former solution is due 

 to the greater affinity between salt and 

 water as compared with that between 

 sugar and water. 



The study of solutions then was begun 

 with the chemical conception of solutions, 

 and upon this conception many relation- 

 ships have been worked out during the 

 first eighty-seven years of the nineteenth 

 century. The older chemists clearly recog- 

 nized that whether solution will take place 

 or not in a given case is first of all de- 

 termined by the chemical nature of the 

 substances brought into contact with each 

 other. They saw that the temperature 

 factor was next in importance, and that 

 pressure was of vital consequence when 

 a gas was under consideration, but of 

 slight importance in the case of solids 

 and liquids. When the conception that 

 solutions are mere physical mixtures 

 came to the foreground, through the 

 introduction of gas analogies and the in- 

 tense propagandism of the dilute school, 

 the fact that the act of solution is really 

 chemical in character was lost sight of by 

 many able, enthusiastic young investiga- 

 tors. In the ardor of their quest they were 

 misled, and unwittingly they naturally 

 misled others. It is really pitiable to see 

 how our physiologists, having thus taken 

 up these misconceptions of the nature of 

 solutions, are still wasting precious time 

 in endeavoring to work out the complicated 

 and very important processes that occur in 

 living plants and animals. In these prob- 

 lems, which are in reality perhaps the 

 very greatest that confront us at the 

 present day, theories of solutions based on 



gas analogies are of no avail. They are 

 thoroughly misleading and worse than 

 worthless here. 



The clear recognition that solutions are 

 really chemical in character and that there 

 is no wide gulf that separates the act of 

 solution from other chemical phenomena, 

 will do much toward furthering the future 

 study of the subject. I do not claim to 

 have prophetic ability, but nevertheless I 

 venture to express it as my conviction, 

 based upon years of experimental study of 

 the chemical, physical and physiological 

 properties of a long list of both aqueous 

 and non-aqueous solutions, that the act of 

 solution is chemical, that solutions are 

 chemical combinations, and that we can 

 only make real progress toward a better 

 understanding of the various solutions by 

 recognizing this as the basis of all of our 

 future work. The efforts to gain a better 

 insight into the different solutions that con- 

 front us must be chiefly experimental, 

 rather than mathematical ; for in the study 

 of solutions, just as in the study of chem- 

 ical compounds in the narrower sense of 

 the word, we are continually confronted 

 with discontinuities. Now discontinuous 

 functions can not be handled mathemat- 

 ically at present, not even by the greatest 

 of our mathematicians, for though work 

 of this kind has been begun, it is still in a 

 very rudimentary stage. It is highly prob- 

 able too that the renewed study of solu- 

 tions from the chemical point of view will 

 greatly aid us in getting a broader and 

 more correct conception of the nature of 

 chemical action itself. Certainly in living 

 beings we have numerous, fundamental 

 and deep-seated chemical changes going 

 on continually with apparently the greatest 

 ease at ordinary temperatures and pres- 

 sures, and it is tantalizing that we are 

 unable to comprehend how this is all 

 brought about. In the unraveling of the 



