Ferments and their actions / by Carl Oppenheimer ; Translated from the German by C. Ainsworth Mitchell.

Date:
1901
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Ferments and their actions / by Carl Oppenheimer ; Translated from the German by C. Ainsworth Mitchell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    indissoluble connection of the one process with the living cel], whilst the enzymes could exert their action apart from the cell, although, unlike Pasteur, he did not directly identify the action of the organised ferments with their metabolism. In that state of our knowledge it was then really very difficult to find room for a comprehensive conception of the notion of a ferment. Moreover, Loew’s1 idea that enzymes are a residue which can store active force in the living protoplasm is much too vague to be capable of being closely examined. A similar theory was that of Medwedew,2 who represented the action of animal oxy- dases as a residuum of vital force. The views advanced by others (c.g., A. Mayer3) were of a like character. With the radical notion of Gautier, in which direct vital properties are attributed to the ferments, we shall deal subsequently. Hansen4 was thus then in a certain sense justilied in pro- posing to loosen the Gordian knot by simply severing the slight connection between organised and unorganised ferments—a connection which was only apparent in the historical develop- ment of the subject. He considered it best to let the idea of a ferment entirely drop} and to distinguish between the action of enzymes, which had no need of the living cell, and the sphere of fermentative phenomena which was to be regarded as a subordinate part of the metabolism of the organisms. A dynamic view of the fermentative processes was here abandoned, and the biological view brought into prominence as the basis of the conception. If it were not possible to bridge over the gap between living and dead ferments and to make room for a comprehensive dynamic conception, this view would be perfectly justifiable and of great service in elucidating the problems which present themselves. But I hope to show in the following pages that this gap can be bridged over, and that it is quite possible to retain the actual notion of a ferment and to give it a comprehensive definition. That the difference between the fermentative actions of enzymes and of living cells cannot be such a fundamental one i3 clearly shown by many facts which are too little taken into account in this connection. Thus it is quite impossible to draw a line of, indeed, only a hair’s breadth between the enzymes given by the cell to the surrounding media and those other ferments which remain firmly attached to the cell. Whilst the 1 Loew, Pjlug. A., xxvii., 210. 2Medwedew, Pjlug. A., lxv., 249, 1897. 3 A. Mayer, Enzymologie, Heidelberg, 1882. 4 Hansen, Arbeiten aus dem botan. Institut. Wilrzburg, iii.