Chemical Phenomena in Life

Abstract

MESSRS. HARPER could not have secured a more authoritative or a clearer writer than Prof. Czapek, of Prague, to present to the public the most recent views of biochemistry. The chemistry of protoplasm and its behaviour, as well as that of its constituents have been greatly illuminated since that branch of chemistry known as the chemistry of colloids has been subjected to investigation. The main properties of colloids were discovered by Thomas Graham in 1861, and the conception of ions we owe to Faraday. Nevertheless, the science of physical chemistry remained in a dormant condition until van 't Hoff and Le Bel, twenty-one years ago, laid down the famous law named after them, and put forward their views on the nature of solutions. Exact and even mathematical researches in this region were thus rendered possible, and physical chemistry since then has grown at a prodigious rate, and has increased the boundaries of knowledge, not only so far as chemistry and physics are concerned, but also in the biological field as well.

Chemical Phenomena in Life.

By Prof. F. Czapek. Pp. ix + 152. (Harper's Library of Living Thought.) (London and New York: Harper and Bros., 1911.) Price 2s. 6d. net.