The principle of catalysis is therefore very important.
This latter consideration affords a satisfactory explanation of the well-known depressing, or stimulating, action of electrolytes, especially acids and bases, upon the enzymic catalysis of protoplasmic reactions.
Catalysis is the property possessed by certain bodies of initiating chemical reaction.
Professor Bredig of Heidelberg has lately described a curious phenomenon, the {76} periodic catalysis of peroxide of hydrogen by mercury.
This explains the retardation at the beginning {77} of the experiment, since the rhythmic catalysis cannot begin until the hydrogen peroxide has dissolved a little of the glass so as to render it slightly alkaline.
Many other chemical and physical agents have a similar inhibitory action on the catalysis of colloidal metals and on diastasic fermentation.
This I have done by showing that catalysis is only one instance of the general law of the transformation of potential into kinetic energy, viz.
The phenomena of catalysis and of diastatic fermentation have for the first time been brought under the general laws of energetics.
Then little by little catalysis of the hydrogen peroxide begins, with liberation of oxygen.
Ostwald has shown that catalysis consists essentially in the acceleration or retardation of chemical reactions which would take place without the action of the catalyzer, but more slowly.
Like circulation or respiration, periodic catalysis has its poisons, and exhibits signs of fatigue, and of paralysis by cold.
To this power, in all probability, does catalysis belong.
Other well-known and remarkable examples are thecatalysis of the combustion of hydrogen and of sulphur dioxide in oxygen by finely-divided platinum.
In regard to catalysis in heterogeneous systems, especially the hastening of gas-reactions by platinum, it is very probable that it is closely connected with the solution or absorption of the gases on the part of the metal.
One of the earliest known and technically most important instances of catalysis is that of the oxidation of sulphur dioxide to sulphuric acid by oxygen in the presence of oxides of nitrogen.
The great industrial importance of catalysis has led to a revived interest in the scientific theories of the process, and the latest book on the subject, by Drs.
As the living plasm reacts on these influences, and the reaction is often repeated, a habit is formed (as in the catalysis of certain inorganic chemical processes).
It was afterwards discovered thatcatalysis of this kind is very general, and that a special form of it--fermentation--plays an important part in the life of organisms.
The whole vital activity of the simplest monera, especially of the chromacea, is confined to their metabolism, and is therefore a purely chemical process, that may be compared to the catalysis of inorganic compounds.
We shall see later on that this is a purely chemical process, something like catalysis in inorganic combinations; and for this neither special organs nor fine elementary structures in the plasm are needed.
In the same way Ostwald attributes the greatest significance to catalysis in connection with the vital processes, and seeks to explain them on his theory of energy by reference to the duration of chemical processes.
In his further observations on catalysis and metabolism he says that they are both equally subject to the physico-chemical laws of energy.
