26 
Transactions Texas Academy of Science. — 1907. 
THE BIOPHYSICAL THEORY OF FERMENTS AND THEIR ACTION. 
A comprehensive consideration of the phenomena of fermentation 
from all viewpoints in past and present time; the analogies that exist 
between ferment phenomena and the phenomena of infection and im- 
munity; the insufficiency of existing theories to explain the nature and 
action of ferments; the uniqueness of ferment energy and the mystery 
of its source, led me to believe that a solution of the problem, how 
ferments develop special energy and do special work, could only be 
found in the molecular structure of matter. The development of this 
idea into a comprehensive theory, which serves not only to explain the 
nature of ferments and their action, but the nature of toxins and their 
action as well, was a process of slow and tedious development. The 
theory is predicated upon the concepts that the energy of a molecule 
is the sum of energy of its atoms, and that molecular energy is derived 
from ether waves produced by inherent vibratory motions of atoms 
within molecules. 
Accepting the statements of Julius Thompson in the introduction 
of his “Thermo-Chemical Investigation,” that “theoretical chemistry 
is based upon the molecular theory, according to which all matter is 
made up of molecules, and these molecules of atoms. The physical 
state of bodies depends upon the arrangement and motions of the 
molecules, the other physical and chemical properties depend upon the 
kind and number of atoms in the molecule, upon their arrangement 
and relative motions. The suggestions of J. Clerk Maxwell (“Ency- 
clopedia Britannica,” article “Atom”) that “Atoms exist of various 
kinds having their various periods of vibration, either identical, or so 
nearly identical that our spectroscopes can not distinguish them.” The 
same kind of atoms, say of hydrogen, have the same set of periods of 
vibration, whether we procure the hydrogen from water, from coal or 
from meteoric iron. And' of Lord Kelvin, who, in his vortex hypothesis,, 
not only attributes to each kind of atom its distinctive motion, but 
postulates that the motion of the atom is the sole character which dis- 
tinguishes it from other atoms, I will mentally picture molecular struc- 
ture and the source of molecule energy as I see them. 
ATOMS. 
Atoms may or may not be ultimate parts of matter. It is quite 
sufficient, to satisfy the biophysical theory, to regard atoms as the 
smallest parts of matter that are capable of entering into chemical 
combination, since it is the behavior or properties of the atoms which 
concern our investigation, rather than the question of divisibility. It 
