§ 2. Some interesting cases of the explanation of old uniformities by newly ascertained laws are afforded by the researches of Professor Graham. That eminent chemist was the first who drew attention to the distinction which may be made of all substances into two classes, termed by him crystalloids and colloids; or rather, of all states of matter into the crystalloid and the colloidal states, for many substances are capable of existing in either. When in the colloidal state, their sensible properties are very different from those of the same substance when crystallized, or when in a state easily susceptible of crystallization. Colloid substances pass with extreme difficulty and slowness into the crystalline state, and are extremely inert in all the ordinary chemical relations. Substances in the colloid state are almost always, when combined with water, more or less viscous or gelatinous. The most prominent examples of the state are certain animal and vegetable substances, particularly gelatine, albumen, starch, the gums, caramel, tannin, and some others. Among substances not of organic origin, the most notable instances are hydrated silicic acid, and hydrated alumina, with other metallic peroxides of the aluminous class.
Now it is found, that while colloidal substances are easily penetrated by water, and by the solutions of crystalloid substances, they are very little penetrable by one another: which enabled Professor Graham to introduce a highly effective process (termed dialysis) for separating the crystalloid substances contained in any liquid mixture, by passing them through a thin septum of colloidal matter, which does not suffer any thing colloidal to pass, or suffers it only in very minute quantity. This property of colloids enabled Mr. Graham to account for a number of special results of observation, not previously explained.
For instance, “while soluble crystalloids are always highly sapid, soluble colloids are singularly insipid,” as might be expected; for, as the sentient extremities of the nerves of the palate “are probably protected by a colloidal membrane,” impermeable to other colloids, a colloid, when tasted, [pg 340] probably never reaches those nerves. Again, “it has been observed that vegetable gum is not digested in the stomach; the coats of that organ dialyse the soluble food, absorbing crystalloids, and rejecting all colloids.” One of the mysterious processes accompanying digestion, the secretion of free muriatic acid by the coats of the stomach, obtains a probable hypothetical explanation through the same law. Finally, much light is thrown upon the observed phenomena of osmose (the passage of fluids outward and inward through animal membranes) by the fact that the membranes are colloidal. In consequence, the water and saline solutions contained in the animal body pass easily and rapidly through the membranes, while the substances directly applicable to nutrition, which are mostly colloidal, are detained by them.1
The property which salt possesses of preserving animal substances from putrefaction is resolved by Liebig into two more general laws, the strong attraction of salt for water, and the necessity of the presence of water as a condition of putrefaction. The intermediate phenomenon which is interpolated between the remote cause and the effect, can here be not merely inferred but seen; for it is a familiar fact, that flesh upon which salt has been thrown is speedily found swimming in brine.
The second of the two factors (as they may be termed) into which the preceding law has been resolved, the necessity of water to putrefaction, itself affords an additional example of the Resolution of Laws. The law itself is proved by the Method of Difference, since flesh completely dried and kept in a dry atmosphere does not putrefy; as we see in the case of dried provisions and human bodies in very dry climates. A deductive explanation of this same law results from Liebig’s speculations. The putrefaction of animal and other azotized bodies is a chemical process, by which they are gradually dissipated in a gaseous form, chiefly in that of carbonic acid and ammonia; now to convert the carbon of the animal substance into carbonic acid