404 LABILITY AND ENERGY IN RELATION TO PROTOPLASM. 
« „ 
non essential is the supposed relative number of the active 
groups (twelve for Lieberkitehris formula), as unforeseen atomic 
migrations may occur. Compounds with more than two aldehyde 
groups 05 have not thus far been prepared but this fact in itself 
gives no ground to infer that molecules with more than two 
aldehyde groups are impossible. The actual preparation of a 
compound consisting of six keto-groups, viz., the triquinoyl, 
appears in itself hardly more striking than, e.g. , that of a ben¬ 
zene-ring would be to which six aldehyde groups are attached, cor¬ 
responding to the as yet hypothetical aldehyde of mellitic acid. 
When, in the year 1880, I explained before the Munich 
Chemical Society my theory of the formation of albumin in plants, 
and Iliad expressed the opinion that amido-aldehydes, an unknown 
class of bodies then, would certainly be prepared at a future time, 
some of the chemists present denied the possible existence 
of such bodies, as they would change at the moment of prepa¬ 
ration. Later, however, amido-aldehydes were prepared, and it 
was found that the degree of lability varies considerably with 
different amido-aldehydes. Moreover, the toxicological facts 
described (Bulletin II. No. 1), give colour to my deduc¬ 
tion that the lability of the living protoplasm is caused by the 
co-existence of aldehyde and amido-groups in the active albumin. 
To recapitulate : Labile (kineto-labile) compounds, which 
readily change into an isomeric stable modification contain certain 
atoms loosely bound, which condition is caused by a certain 
amount of kinetic chemical energy counteracting the force of affi¬ 
nity existing between the atoms of the compound. Every energy 
of the kinetic kind is motion, and motion can be conveyed from 
one body to another. Kinetic chemical energy (atomic motion) 
may, by being conveyed to atoms of other easily changeable 
compounds, lead to chemical changes in them (katalytic pheno¬ 
mena). I have attempted to give an explanation of the coiiti- 
miity of such motions in aldehyde groups, according to our pre¬ 
sent state of knowledge. But even those who may consider 
that explanation still incomplete will at least admit the cor¬ 
rectness of the deduction that labile atoms are in a special state of 
continuous vibration. 
For his convenience, the reader may now follow a juxta¬ 
position of inferences of my theory and of actual observations : 
[(i) Cf. On phthalic aldehyde, Ber. Chem. Ges. 20 , 509. 
