FORMERLY PRESIDENT OF THE RÖNTGEN SOCIETY, AND OF THE ELECTRO-THERAPEUTICAL SECTION OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF MEDICINE   "La nature a formé, et forme tous les jours les êtres les plus simples par génération spontanée." Lamarck....

First Impression March 1911 Second Impression January 1914 Printed in England...

Professor Leduc's Théorie Physico-chimique de la Vie et Générations Spontanées has excited a good deal of attention, and not a little opposition, on the Continent. As recently as 1907 the Académie des Sciences excluded from its Comptes Rendus the report of these experimental researches on diffusion and osmosis, because it touched too closely on the burning question of spontaneous generation. As the author points out, Lamarck's early evolutionary hypothesis was killed by opposition and neglect, a

C'est par l'initiative du Dr. Deane Butcher que cette ouvrage est presenté aux lecteurs anglais, à la race qui a doté l'humanité de tant de découvertes originales, geniales et d'une portée très générale. Comme un être vivant, une idée exige pour naître et se développer le germe et le milieu de développement. Il est indéniable que le peuple anglo-américain constitue un milieu particulièrement favorable à la naissance et au développement des idées nouvelles. Pendant notre collaboration le Dr. Dean

Life was formerly regarded as a phenomenon entirely separated from the other phenomena of Nature, and even up to the present time Science has proved wholly unable to give a definition of Life; evolution, nutrition, sensibility, growth, organization, none of these, not even the faculty of reproduction, is the exclusive appanage of life. Living things are made of the same chemical elements as minerals; a living being is the arena of the same physical forces as those which affect the inorganic worl

LIFE AND LIVING BEINGS Primitive man distinguished but two kinds of bodies in nature, those which were motionless and those which were animated. Movement was for him the expression of life. The stream, the wind, the waves, all were alive, and each was endowed with all the attributes of life—will, sentiment, and passion. Ancient Greek mythology is but the poetic expression of this primitive conception. In the evolution of the intelligence, as in that of the body, the development of the individual

SOLUTIONS We have seen that living beings are transformers of energy and of matter, evolutionary in form and liquid in consistency; that they are solutions of colloids and crystalloids separated by osmotic membranes to form microscopic cells, or consisting merely of a gelatinous mass of protoplasm, with a nucleus of slightly differentiated material. The elementary phenomenon of life is the contact of two different solutions. This is the initial physical phenomenon from which proceed all the othe

ELECTROLYTIC SOLUTIONS Solutions which conduct Electricity. —The laws of solution which we have studied in the previous chapter apply only to those solutions, chiefly of organic origin, which do not conduct electricity. Solutions of electrolytes such as the ordinary salts, acids, and bases, which are ionized on solution, give values for the various constants of solution which do not accord with those required by theory. If, for instance, we take a gramme-molecule of an electrolyte such as chlori

COLLOIDS As we have already seen, living organisms are formed essentially of liquids. These liquids are solutions of crystallizable substances or crystalloids, and non-crystallizable substances or colloids—a classification which we owe to Graham. The liquids are the most important constituents of a living organism, since they are the seat of all the chemical and physical phenomena of life. The junction of two liquids of different concentration is the arena in which takes place both the chemical

DIFFUSION AND OSMOSIS Diffusion and Osmosis. —If we place a lump of sugar in the bottom of a glass of water, it will dissolve, and spread by slow degrees equally throughout the whole volume of the liquid. If we pour a concentrated solution of sulphate of copper into the bottom of a glass vessel, and carefully pour over it a layer of clear water, the liquids, at first sharply separated by their difference of density, will gradually mix, so as to form a solution having exactly the same composition

PERIODICITY Periodic Precipitation. —A phenomenon is said to be periodic when it varies in time and space and is identically reproduced at equal intervals. We are surrounded on all sides by periodic phenomena; summer and winter, day and night, sleep and waking, rhythm and rhyme, flux and reflux, the movements of respiration and the beating of the heart, all are periodic. Our first sorrows were appeased by the periodic rhythm of the cradle, and in our later years the periodic swing of the rocking

COHESION AND CRYSTALLIZATION Chemical affinity is the force which holds together the different atoms in a molecule. Cohesion is the force which holds together molecules which are chemically similar. Although physical science distinguishes three states of matter, solid, liquid, and gaseous, yet here as elsewhere there are no sharp dividing lines, but rather an absolute continuity. We have in fact many intermediate states; between liquids and gases there are the various conditions of vapour, and b

KARYOKINESIS In 1873, Hermann Fol, writing of the eggs of Geryonia, thus describes the phenomenon of karyokinesis: "On either side of the residue of the nucleus there appears a concentration of plasma, thus forming two perfectly regular star-like figures, whose rays are straight lines of granulations. There are other curved rays which pass from one star or centre of attraction to the other. The whole figure is extraordinarily distinct, recalling in a striking manner the arrangement of iron filin

ENERGETICS Movement is everywhere; there is no such thing as immobility; the very idea of rest is itself an illusion. Immobility is only apparent and relative, and disappears under closer examination. All terrestrial objects are driven with prodigious velocity around the sun, and the dwellers on the earth's equator travel each day around the 40,000 kilometres of its circumference. All objects on the globe are in motion, the inanimate as well as the living. The waters rise in vapour from the sea,

SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY The course of development of every branch of natural science has been the same. It begins by the observation and classification of the objects and phenomena of nature. The next step is to decompose the more complex phenomena in order to determine the physical mechanism underlying them—the science has become analytical. Finally, when the mechanism of a phenomenon is understood, it becomes possible to reproduce it, to repeat it by directing the physical forces which are its cause

OSMOTIC GROWTH—A STUDY IN MORPHOGENESIS The phenomenon of osmotic growth has doubtless presented itself to the eyes of every chemist; but to discover a phenomenon it is not enough merely to have it under our eyes. Before Newton many a mathematician had seen a spectrum, if only in the rainbow; many an observer before Franklin had watched the lightning. To discover a phenomenon is to understand it, to give it its due interpretation, and to comprehend the importance of the rôle which it plays in th

THE PHENOMENA OF LIFE AND OSMOTIC PRODUCTIONS—A STUDY IN PHYSIOGENESIS It is impossible to define life, not only because it is complex, but because it varies in different living beings. The phenomena which constitute the life of a man are far other than those which make up the life of a polyp or a plant; and in the more simple forms life is so greatly reduced that it is often a matter of difficulty to decide whether a given form belongs to the animal, vegetable, or mineral kingdom. Considering t

EVOLUTION AND SPONTANEOUS GENERATION By many biologists, even at the present day, the origin and evolution of living beings is considered to be outside the domain of natural phenomena, and hence beyond the reach of experimental research. The change in our views on this subject is due to a Frenchman, Jean Lamarck, who was the true originator of the scientific doctrine of evolution. At a time when the miraculous origin of every living being was regarded as an unchangeable verity, and was defended