effect and the rate of the reaction gradually diminishes. But in certain cases we have the very remarkable phenomenon that a body acting as a catalyser is necessarily formed as a product, or bye-product, of the main reaction, and in such a case as this the reaction-velocity will tend to be steadily accelerated. Instead of dwindling away, the reaction will continue with an ever-increasing velocity: always subject to the reservation that limiting conditions will in time make themselves felt, such as a failure of some necessary ingredient, or a development of some substance which shall antagonise or finally destroy the original reaction. Such an action as this we have learned, from Ostwald, to describe as ãautocatalysis.ã Now we know that certain products of protoplasmic metabolism, such as the enzymes, are very powerful catalysers, and we are entitled to speak of an autocatalytic action on the part of protoplasm itself. This catalytic activity of protoplasm is a very important phenomenon. As Blackman says, in the address already quoted, the botanists (or the zoologists) ãcall it growth, attribute it to a specific power of protoplasm for assimilation, and leave it alone as a fundamental phenomenon; but they are much concerned as to the distribution of new growth in innumerable specifically distinct forms.ã While the chemist, on the other hand, recognises it as a familiar phenomenon, and refers it to the same category as his other known examples of autocatalysis. {132}
This very important, and perhaps even fundamental phenomenon of growth would seem to have been first recognised by Professor Chodat of Geneva, as we are told by his pupil Monnier87. ãOn peut bien, ainsi que M. Chodat lãa proposûˋ, considûˋrer lãaccroissement comme une rûˋaction chimique complexe, dans laquelle le catalysateur est la cellule vivante, et les corps en prûˋsence sont lãeau, les sels, et lãacide carbonique.ã
Very soon afterwards a similar suggestion was made by Loeb88, in connection with the synthesis of nuclein or nuclear protoplasm; for he remarked that, as in an autocatalysed chemical reaction, the velocity of the synthesis