THE ENERGY OF THE LIVING PROTOPLASM. 
167 
ed with chemical actions caused by waves of heat, light, (I) elect¬ 
ricity, and even by the waves of sound in some instances (explo¬ 
sion of iodide of nitrogen), but concerning the related phenomenon 
of chemical action set up by oscillating motion of the labile 
(unstable) position of atoms, our knowledge is but very scanty. 
Such processes are of the kind termed katalytic actions. (2) This 
expression was first used by Berzelius to designate chemical 
phenomena apparently caused by mere contact with a certain 
substance. The unsatisfactory definition of Berzelius , and the 
denomination of certain processes as katalytic which in reality 
were not such at all, implied a misunderstanding, and when Liebig 
ridiculed the idea of Berzelius , nobody seemed to dare any more 
to speak of this interesting group of phenomena and to explain 
satisfactorily, for example, the wonderful activity of platinum 
black. (3) 
Katalytic actions exist, however, but they are not the result 
of a mere contact, as Berzelius believed, but of a certain amount 
of energy being conveyed, whereby the katalyser remains 
entirely intact. If, however, the apparently katalytically acting 
substance undergoes intermediary chemical changes with final 
regeneration, the process is not a katalytic one. Such pseudo - 
katalytic actions are, for example, the rôle of nitric oxide in the 
manufacture of sulphuric acid, that of cobaltic oxide in the 
development of oxygen from chloride of lime, the action of 
(1) The action of light may consist in bringing about [a] combinations, as that 
between chlorine and hydrogen, or ( h) disruptions ; bisulphide of carbon is split into 
sulphur and a lower sulphide (O. Loew) \ aqueous sulphurous acid is split into sulphur 
and sulphuric acid (O. Loew) ; nitric acid into oxygen ând nitrous acid ; silver salts 
are reduced to metal ; (c) reductions of organic compounds : in alcoholic solution 
quinone is changed into hydroquinone, nitrobenzene into aniline (Ciamician and 
Silber), benzil into benzil-benzoin, phenanthrene-quinone into phenanthrene-hydro- 
quinone, a portion of the alcohol present being converted into aldehyde ; (d) poly¬ 
merisation and condensation ; thymoquinone, anethol, phenyl-naphtoquinone are 
polymerised ; nionobromacetylene is converted into tribrombenzene, propargylic acid 
into trimesic acid (Ber. D. Chem. Ges. 27, 958). 
(2) The great resemblance of the chemical activity of living cells to katalytic 
actions was recognised more than thirty years ago by the great physiologist, C. Ludwig. 
Also C. Lehmann in his “ Lehrb. d. physiolog, Chem.,” and, later on, Traube and 
Stohmann expressed themselves in the same sense. But explanation of this katalytic 
action was wanting. 
(3) Even now-a-days, isolated voices are raised in the sense of Liebig. See 
H. Macleod's lecture at the meeting of the British Assoc, in Edinburgh i8g2, 
