32 
Transactions Texas Academy of Science. — 1907. 
character, periods, and phase of molecular waves of ferment and sub- 
strate is required that potential wave energy may be converted into 
dynamic wave energy; in other words, that ferment work may be accom- 
plished. The specific nature of ferment or recombination products, 
which result from the specific action of a ferment on its substrates, 
goes without saying since no other kind of products could occur under 
these conditions. 
Fermentation may then be regarded as a physico-chemical contest 
between the ferment and the substrate; a contest which is carried on 
by means of their respective molecular waves, and one that will con- 
tinue, sometimes forwards and. backwards, until an equilibrium of the 
contending forces is reached through recombination products which 
antagonize the ferment action, and will finally arrest the process. 
How decomposition,- or if permitted to use a more descriptive term, 
recombination, products of a ferment reaction establish an equilibrium 
of forces that will arrest fermentation will now be answered, and in 
the same connection an effort will be made to show that the striking 
analogies which exist between the action of enzymes, toxins, and tox- 
albumins, are due to an equal similarity, if not identity, in the source 
and nature of the energy which these bodies manifest. 
We have learned that alcoholic fermentation consists in the conver- 
sion of grape sugar of grape juice into, practically, alcohol and carbon 
dioxide; and that this is accomplished by the ferment of yeast. It is 
a matter of fact that alcohol is an antiferment to this process, and will 
stop it when 12 to 15 per cent of alcohol has accumulated. That alco- 
hol alone is the inhibiting cause is proved by the arrested fermentation 
starting up when part of the alcohol is removed, to again stop when 
the required per cent has again accumulated. There may be both sugar 
and yeast present, but there will be no fermentation while 15 per cent 
of alcohol intervenes. These facts are interpreted by the biophysical 
theory, as follows: A molecular wave contest between the yeast fer- 
ment and sugar molecules is made necessary by their contact, and by 
the coincidence in time, crest and trough of their waves. The mole- 
cular waves of the ferment, falling in a timely way millions of times a 
second upon the molecular waves of the sugar, increase their energy, 
and swing the sugar atoms further and further apart until they are 
finally swung beyond their affinities and become dissociated, and the 
sugar decomposed. But since nascent atoms speedily combine along 
lines of least resistance, the dissociated sugar atoms obey this chemical 
law and enter into recombination products. But let us consider what 
influences determine the combining lines of least resistance in this 
reaction. The wave energy of the yeast, that decomposed the sugar, is 
a determining influence in the recombination that must be considered. 
