Quantitative laws in biological chemistry / by Svante Arrhenius.

  • Arrhenius, Svante, 1859-1927.
Date:
1915
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Quantitative laws in biological chemistry / by Svante Arrhenius. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    substance may exert a great influence on the re- action. Thus, for instance, agglutination of bacteria does not occur in absence of salts and is also prohibited by the presence of salts in higher concentration. The first circumstance is analogous to the sedimentation of suspended particles by salts in solution, the second one is probably due to the dissolution of the albuminous precipitate, which causes the agglutination—strong solutions of salts are good solvents for albuminous precipitates. Even if we try to avoid new hypotheses regard- ing the presence of a great number of antibodies (or antigens) as much as possible, we find that it is characteristic that every antigen has its special antibody, which does not react with other antigens. This so-called specificity is of the greatest importance, for it is possible to discover an antigen amongst an immense number of other organic substances by means of its specific antibody. The blood of different animals, the secretions of different bacilli may in this manner be discriminated from each other with perfect certainty. In this case ordinary chemical analysis leaves us absolutely helpless. It may therefore be maintained that this new department of science opens for us an immense new field of chemistry of the very highest import- ance to mankind. This circumstance explains the exceptional interest of the investigation of this field. As has been said above, it is physical chemistry which gives us the mighty instrument for these investigations. This science itself has been greatly c