The  Phenomena  of  Catalysis. 
(  Am.  Jour.  Pharm 
\  November,  1913. 
catalyzers  or  enzymes),  it  can  be  shown  that  they  leave  the  solution 
and  are  absorbed  by  the  fibrin  in  which  they  are  producing  the 
decomposing  reaction.  They  thus  resemble  the  reacting  gases 
which  adsorb  in  the  platinum  of  our  simpler  cases. 
An  exceedingly  interesting  recently  investigated  case  of  catalysis 
in  the  relatively  simple  reactions  of  the  laboratory,  corresponds  so 
perfectly  to  a  well  known  and  apparently  complex  historical  case  in 
Nature  that  I  make  bold  to  present  it. 
It  may  be  recalled  that  in  that  remarkable  biochemical  work  of 
Pasteur's  in  connection  with  a  study  of  the  tartrates,  he  found  that 
in  the  crystallized  tartaric  acids  there  were  left  and  right  crystals, 
shapes  which  corresponded  as  our  left  and  right  hands  do  and 
would  not  permit  of  even  imaginary  superposition.  So  also,  when 
these  were  in  separate  solutions,  one  caused  rotation  of  the  plane 
of  polarized  light  to  the  right,  and  the  other  to  the  left.  When 
they  are  suitably  mixed  they  form  the  optically  inactive  racemic 
acid.  One  of  the  ways,  which  he  discovered  for  separation  of 
these  two  forms  when  found  thus  mixed  in  Nature,  was  by  means 
of  the  green  mould  Pencillium  glaucum.  The  growth  of  this  mould 
caused  decomposition  or  destruction  or  oxidation  of  one  of  these 
exceedingly  similar  chemical  compounds  (identical  in  quantitative 
chemical  composition)  more  rapidly  than  the  other;  it  showed 
such  a  selective  catalysis  as  to  distinguish  between  the  two.  This 
was  a  case  of  selective  catalysis  by  the  enzyme  or  ferment  of  the 
growing  mould.  Starting  with  the  racemic,  or  optically  inactive 
acid,  he  could  stop  the  fermentation  at  a  stage  where  only  the  laevo 
tartaric  acid  remained,  the  dextro  tartaric  acid  having  been 
destroyed. 
Now  quite  recently,  Bredig  and  his  pupils  have  studied  the  reac- 
tion of  decomposition  of  bromcamphorcarbonic  acid  when  catalyzed 
by  small  quantities  of  organic  bases  such  as  the  alkaloids.  They 
seem  to  have  thus  produced  results  very  perfectly  paralleling  the 
above  historic  discoveries  of  Pasteur. 
The  molecular  structure  of  the  tartaric  acids  is  such  that,  know- 
ing this  structure  and  knowing  that  an  asymmetric  carbon  atom  will 
produce  optical  activity,  it  is  now  possible  to  predict  such  develop- 
ments as  the  separation  of  some  optically  inactive  material  into  two 
optically  active  ones.  It  was  shown  that  in  the  decomposition  of 
bromcamphorcarbonic  acid,  the  organic  alkalies  act  as  catalyzers. 
This  substance  decomposes  slowly  into  bromcamphor  and  carbonic 
