30 
Transactions Texas Academy of Science. — 1907. 
assemblage of molecules, might deliver up their motion to each molecule 
as a whole, leaving the relative position of the constituent atoms un- 
changed. But the long series of reactions represented by the deport- 
ment of nitrite of amyl vapor does not favor this conception; for, were 
the atoms animated solely by a common motion, the molecules would 
not be decomposed. The fact of decomposition, then, goes to prove the 
atoms to be the seat of absorption. They in a great part take up the 
energy of the ether waves, whereby their union is severed and the build- 
ing material of the molecules is scattered abroad/ 5 
CONCEPTION OF A FERMENT. 
which, by means of atomic movements, stereo-chemical configuration of 
its molecules and the arrangement of the molecules in the compound, is 
capable of developing ferment energy and of transmitting this to a vul- 
nerable substrate with which the ferment is in contact. 
The structural features which distinguish ferment from non-ferment 
substances are, first, the kind of atoms and their spatial relations in 
the molecule — that is, the arrangement of the atoms in the molecule 
in characteristic groups; second, the arrangement of the molecules in 
the substance so that an exaggerated surface, in proportion to weight 
and mass, is exposed to molecular action. 
All substances that possess these features should have ferment poten- 
tial energy, whether the substance be a living micro-organism, an 
enzyme, a proteid, or a metal. Nature has supplied ferment properties 
to certain species of micro-organisms seemingly to perpetuate the fer- 
ment, as this function of the micro-organism is distinct from and is not 
necessary to the functions which maintain the life of the cell, nor to 
the other vital functions of the micro-organism. Not only may living 
cells possess ferment function or property, but non-living cells (enzyme 
cells) proteid cells, and some metals in molecular division also possess 
it. Recent biologic investigations have shown that proteids of all kinds, 
when taken from one species of animal and hypodermically injected 
into another species of animal, manifest specific ferment action, that is, 
they cause certain specific chemical changes to occur in the proteids of 
the blood of the animal treated, with a development of end products 
which respond in a definite manner when brought in contact with the 
identical substance injected, but only when this is obtained from the 
same species of animal as the one which furnished the proteid injected. 
The relation in specific qualities between the proteid injected and the 
products of its reaction furnishes evidence that proteids under certain 
conditions are special ferments; while ferment activities of colloidal 
solutions of platinum, which differ from the metal in larger pieces 
/ 
