98 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIV. No. 865 



My excuse for ofifering it at all is that it 

 may present views novel to an audience 

 such as this ; views that may be of interest 

 because they deal with some of the phe- 

 nomena of life. 



The fundamental unit of the biologist 

 was for many years the cell. The concep- 

 tion of the cell is really an anatomical one, 

 and a mere anatomical consideration of it 

 does not lead to an understanding of its 

 functions. I can illustrate what I mean by 

 discussing the ordinary gravity cell or bat- 

 tery. The anatomist would describe such a 

 cell as consisting of a vessel of some sort of 

 material containing a blue liquid in which 

 there were a whitish mass and a reddish 

 mass at different levels, each connected 

 with a reddish strand projecting upward. 

 Such an analysis is obviously imperfect 

 because it would never lead us to discover 

 that the cell is capable of producing an 

 electric current. However, he who studies 

 the current produced by such a cell, its 

 external and internal resistance, and the 

 like, is, in respect to the gravity cell, a 

 physiologist. Such a physiologist gives us 

 some insight into the functioning of the 

 cell, but he tells us nothing concerning the 

 cause of the generation of the current. The 

 analytical chemist, on the other hand, 

 would tell us that the gravity cell consists 

 of such and such a percentage of silicates, 

 zinc, copper, sulphuric acid and moisture, 

 information very useful in its way, but no 

 more so in the comprehension of cell ac- 

 tivity than that furnished by the anatomist 

 and the physiologist. To understand the 

 gravity cell all three kinds of knowledge 

 are essential. Structure counts quite as 

 mxLch as chemical composition. In such 

 instances the chemist needs anatomical 

 knowledge, for with chemical reagents 

 alone one can not recognize structure. 

 Without a knowledge of structure it is often 

 quite as impossible to understand mechan- 



isms as it would be to predict the regular 

 movements of a watch by first smashing it 

 and then determining by analysis that it 

 contains certain percentages of gold, cop- 

 per, carbon and tin et al.^ Watches may 

 be made of many kinds of material and yet 

 keep the same time. However important 

 the material, it is the structure that is even 

 more essential in measuring time. Ap- 

 parently this seems equally true of living 

 organisms. The energy moving a watch 

 may be furnished by a spring of brass, 

 rather than of steel. Similarly most living 

 things obtain their energy by the oxidation 

 of carbohj^drate, but by no means all. For 

 example, certain kinds of microorganisms, 

 the Beggiatoacea;, obtain their energy by 

 the oxidation of sulphuretted hydrogen to 

 sulphuric acid. They absorb sulphuretted 

 hydrogen and excrete sulphuric acid. 

 Most living things store up, as reserve 

 sources of energy, some form of carbo- 

 hydrate, such as starch or glycogen. Not 

 so the Beggiatoacese; they store up ele- 

 mental sulphur. The conclusion is there- 

 fore inevitable that for a proper under- 

 standing of the mechanisms of the living 

 cell both structural and chemical knowl- 

 edge is necessary. 



Evidently the earlier notions concerning 

 protoplasm were unsatisfactory because 

 they were either purely anatomical or 

 purely chemical, according to the bias of 

 the investigator. Originally protoplasm 

 was regarded as a material showing some 

 anatomical structure, to be sure, but chemi- 

 cally more or less homogeneous, though 

 very complex. The very term " proto- 

 plasm," the first formed, is nothing more 

 than a definition of this conception. Later, 

 as biochemistry advanced, protoplasm came 



' Similar opinions have been expressed, among 

 others, by E. H. Starling ("The Mercers' Com- 

 pany Lecture on the Fluids of the Body," Lon- 

 don, 1909). 



