The oxidases and other oxygen - catalysts concerned in biological oxidations / by J. H. Kastle.

  • Kastle, Joseph H. (Joseph Hoeing), 1864-1916.
Date:
[1910]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The oxidases and other oxygen - catalysts concerned in biological oxidations / by J. H. Kastle. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    46/168 (page 44)
    ni ate rials were first presented in a paper entitled “Ueber die kataly- tische \\ irksamkeit organised Materien und deren Verbreitung in der fhr™ ‘erWelt”f (? in lm- He calls attention to the fact that m 1863 the group of phenomena called by Berzelius “catalytic actions were as yet but very imperfectly understood, especially such as are concerned with changes in the composition of organic com- pounds brought about by the action of ferments, such as the alcoholic ermentation and the conversion of starch into sugar through the action of diastase. He was therefore inclined to the opinion that the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide into water and common oxygen by the action of platinum and similar metals may be regarded as the prototype of all catalytic phenomena. Indeed, as he points out in a later part of this article, Berzelius had already compared the decom- position of hydrogen peroxide by the noble metals to the fermentation ot grape sugar by yeast. It was therefore with the view of throwing still further light on the causes of catalysis in general that these studies on the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide by substances of animal and vegetable origin were first undertaken. He observed that platinum and the noble metals generally rapidly blue a tincture of guaiacum containing hydrogen peroxide, and that a certain amount of the hydrogen peroxide present is decomposed into water and com- mon oxygen. It follows from this that the power of these substances to catalyze hydrogen peroxide is so intimately associated with their power to blue the tincture of guaiacum containing hydrogen peroxide that both properties are referable to the same cause, and it was for this reason that a tincture of guaiacum containing small amounts of hydi ogen pei oxide proved to be a valuable reagent in the investigation of these phenomena. By means of it he proved that these catalytic agents have the widest possible distribution in vegetable and animal tissues. Among the substances tested with the guaiacum hydrogen peroxide reagent were a number of the common enzymes, such as diastase, emulsin, myrosin, rennin, etc., yeast, gluten, and over 100 species of plants, including certain fungi and molds, and also a number of seeds and substances of animal origin, such as fibrin, red blood corpuscles, and saliva. Without exception, all of these substances were found by him to actively decompose hydrogen peroxide, and with only two exceptions, yeast and rennin, all of them likewise gave rise to the production of guaiacum blue. Schoenbein (387) therefore concluded that the power to decompose hydrogen peroxide and to blue guaiacum thereby is intimately associated with the specific activity of the unorganized ferments and with such vital phenomena as the sprouting of seeds, etc., inasmuch as all of these biologic properties are lost by heating to 100° C., by exposure to hydrogen sulphide, and also, as shown in a later paper (385), by exposure to hydrocyanic acid.