Septebiber 6, 1901.] 



SCIENCE. 



371 



that there is always a proper appreciation 

 of original investigation in lines of human 

 interest. There is no more inviting field 

 for labor of this kind than is found in the 

 chemistry of life. The greatest problems in 

 the scientific medicine of the future are un- 

 doubtedly chemical problems. Indeed there 

 are no more important or inviting problems 

 to be found in any line of study than are here 

 presented, and the investigator will find in 

 them enough to tax the skill and ingenuity 

 of the most learned for years to come. This 

 work naturally and properly belongs to the 

 physiological chemist, and that it must be 

 done before much further advance can be 

 made in scientific medicine is already rec- 

 ognized by leading medical men. The idea 

 was clearly presented by the Dean of the 

 Northwestern University Medical School in 

 the address on Medicine at the recent meet- 

 ing of the American Medical Association at 

 St. Paul, and we find it brought forward 

 more or less emphatically elsewhere. 



The chemical difference between certain 

 of the tissues in health and disease may be 

 very minute in some instances, but in other 

 cases it is certainly more pronounced and 

 capable of demonstration. This problem 

 will unquestionably prove one of the most 

 interesting for future investigators. We 

 have long had considerable acquaintance 

 with the products of renal excretion, some- 

 what less with the products formed or 

 active in the stomach, and very much less 

 with the complex reactions taking place in 

 the lower stretches of the intestines. In- 

 vestigation here is probably fully as im- 

 portant as in either of the other cases, but 

 from its inherent difiiculties has been but 

 little developed. As the analysis of the 

 urine gives us our most certain data for 

 the diagnosis of diabetes and various renal 

 disorders, so, it may be expected, will the 

 rational chemical examination of the in- 

 testinal excretion prove of equal value in 

 the exact diagnosis of other bodily ail- 



ments. There is certainly as close a con- 

 nection in the one case as in the other. 

 These questions are purely practical, and 

 will some day claim the attention of skilled 

 and accurate analysts. 



In the field of theoretical investigations 

 the possibilities are even greater. Almost 

 nothing, for example, is known of the steps 

 in nitrogenous metabolism. Between the 

 ingested albumin and the excreted urea and 

 uric acid is a long distance yet to be trav- 

 eled by the chemical investigator ; a few of 

 the possible resting places on the way are 

 known, but the relations of one to the other 

 are yet extremely obscure. 



Scarcely less obscure in its fundamental 

 bearings, although seemingly less intricate, 

 is the question of the nature and mode of 

 action of the soluble ferments or enzymes. 

 This is the problem of chemistry rather 

 than of biology, as the question of the pro- 

 duction of these substances is merely an in- 

 cidental one. The epoch-marking work of 

 Buchner in separating the active enzyme 

 from the cells of yeast has gone far to 

 break down the old and artificial distinction 

 between the soluble and insoluble ferments, 

 and to show that all these so-called vital 

 processes are accomplished through what 

 are essentially chemical means. It has 

 long been supposed that in their mode of 

 action the work of the enzyme is purely 

 analytical, but since the interesting obser- 

 vations of Croft Hill on the formation of 

 maltose from dextrose have been confirmed 

 by O. Emmerling, who found, however, that 

 it was isomaltose that was produced, we 

 have opened up a new line of possible in- 

 vestigation which may throw light on some 

 of the processes taking place within the ani- 

 mal body, where it was assumed by Liebig 

 and others that syntheses do not take place. 



Lately a fruitful line of investigation has 

 been suggested by Bredig in his work on 

 the ' inorganic ferments,' where he shows 

 that colloidal platinum in its oxidation- 



