v CENTRAL PARK, * 

 NEW YORK, 



Lability and Energy in Relation to Protoplasm. 



BY 



Dr. O. Loew, Professor of Agricultural Chemistry. 



I have explained in former Bulletins (1) that physiological 

 phenomena compel us to infer the existence of a labile (active) 

 and a stable (passive) modification of albumin, and that the 

 former alone, — as such and in the form of active nuclein — , is 

 capable of leading by " organization " to living protoplasm, while 

 the latter, or stable, modification would correspond to the condi- 

 tion of the albumin in dead protoplasm and to the reserve-albumin 

 stored up in seeds and eggs. I have also described a highly 

 labile kind of albumin, which is stored up as reserve material 

 in the vacuoles and sometimes in the cytoplasm of living cells of 

 various plants, 00 and which undergoes a chemical change under 

 conditions that would kill living protoplasm. 



I have further attempted to show that in regard to organic 

 compounds, lability implies for the atoms in labile positions a 

 distinct kind of energy consisting in continuous atomic motion 

 which increases under the influence of heat, molecular motion 

 passing here into atomic motion. Thus the cause of the respira- 

 tion of protoplasm, and the utilisation of the heat of respiration 

 for biological chemical functions of a katalytic nature, find a 

 simple explanation. My incomplete treatment of lability, how- 

 ever, has called forth critical remarks' 3 ' which induce me to offer 

 some further remarks. The critic says among other things : 



" That the /unctions of living matter are explicable in mecha- 

 nical terms, physiologists of all schools alike admit. Dr. Loew's 

 merit lies in his offering us a plausible explanation of the mecha- 

 nical basis of vital energy ', of that activity in which, as is well 

 said by BUNGE (one of the foremost of the vitalistic school), " lies 

 the riddle of life." 



(1) Bulletin, Vol. II, No. 2; No. 4. 



(2) This remarkable substance was discovered by 77/. Bokorny and myself. Daiku- 

 hara made further communications on the extent of its distribution through the vege 

 table kingdom (Vide Bulletin No. 2 and 4). 



(3) Japan Mail July 30 ; 1896. 



