THE SPARK OF LIFE.

Golden Bay Argus, Volume XII, Issue 46, 14 April 1910, Page 3

THE SPARK OF LIFE.

V NEW DISCOVERY IN .MEDICINE

Recent discoveries in the realm of medicine have suddenly placed in the hands of the doctors new forces for fighting disease, some of which they are already utilising, while others are of such vast scope that they hardly know how extensive and revolutionary they may be. Perhaps most important and far-reach-ing of all are those discoveries by Henry Leffman, of Philadelphia, a world-famous chemist, who has thrown light upon the most mysterious and baffling of all nature’s processes —life.

He may have discovered the actual germ of life. In a yellow structureless powder, by science long considered inanimate and known to it as the enzyme, Dr. Leffman has found. “The Mystery.” He has found, he says, the force that makes the wheat grow, that hatches the egg. that most probably is at the root, and, indeed, the source of all living things. He has found that the enzyme is a living thing itself : not fungus, or vegetable or inanimate matter, as had long been the theory. He has found it, though living, incapable of re-creating itself. He has found its life, like its power, apparently infinite. Strangest of all, he insists that he has found that the enzyme is a living thing. The link between inanimate matter and animate, and is that without which no life can begin. In other words, the enzyme is t.he vital germ,, the germinator. the powder of life, scattered perhaps over the whole uni-

verse. ALIVE BUT CANNOT PRODUCE ITSELF.

By his experiments this conservative man of science of the twentieth century apparently confirms dreams of bygone ages and overturns cherished scientific beliefs of the present day. “Life,” said one great, philosopher, “is merely a ferment.” It. was in the ferment that Leffman laboured. His quest, the enzyme, had for centuries been an enigma of science, its existence guessed at as the atom, the primal matter, the universal solvent ; for sixty years it. had been known to science, but with its properties unexplained, its scope unknown, its power unguessed,, and the fact that it was a living thing undreamed. The isolated enzyme appears merely as a yellow, structureless powder, found in all the proteids, in the milk, in the egg, in grain. “In all life,” says Leffman. It is in all fermentation, and is its active cause. “The enzyme is a liviqg thing,” says the chemist. It is lower than the lowest form of life yet known, and is between that form and inanimate matter. But it is acutely alive.” This assertion in itself is revolutionary. \

But in asr-rting that the enzyme is living, Leffri... i puts forth a paradox —that is,, ii >aems a paradox until the last stupendous deduction is drawn from it. It is this : The thing lives, but it cannot reproduce itself. 1t., « ists. but it is sterile, how docs i‘ continue to exist ? If it cannot reproduce itself, bow did it come into being f If it cannot duplicate, what place has it in the chain of evolution, whose first link till now has been believed t.o be the amoeba, and its last (on earth, at. least), man ?

To these questions Dr. Bellman answers : “How, if that, yellow tormless powder is the very fount, of life itself —the powder of life scattered over the world and without which the primal impulse towards life cannot he? How, if the enzyme is eternal, everlasting, not needing to reproduce or procreate 1 How. if this powder of life, under given conditions, combined with elements and so produced t.he amoeba, and so started the evolutionary chain, and is still necessary as the impulse towards life of every link in the chain ?

“How, if it is the life principle itself, over which all the world has dreamed since dreams hrst came to the brain of man, and which, in the d'ays of alchemy, was sought for. both in the form of the True Elixir and the Philosopher's Stone ? How, if it is the very germ of life ?” Daring questions, these ; most daring for a scientist. Leflman advances them confidently and points to his experiments. Certainly, tie says, he has found that this strange powder has life. Structureless, formless as it. is, the pulse of life heats in every minute part of it. By itself it is not capable of movement. In combination it vivifies, changes, enlarges, moves with an energy that is terrific, and that is comparable (and that but feebly) with the energy of radium. Yet in all this fierce energy in all its work, the enzyme itself remains unchanged, undiminished, its potency constant. HOW A MILLION TONS OF

STARCH* COULD BECOME SUGAR. It is the enzyme that changes starch to sugar. Given a constant quantity of the enzyme and it will continue changing starcb to sugar indefinitely. To put it crudely. 215,00(1 enzymes in an ounce of starch would change it into a given quantity of sugar. Those same 25,000 would change a ton of starch, . or ten tons, or a million tons, if they had it to work upon ; and in all the process would continue unchanged, living, and ready for a million tons more.

Again, says the chemist, it is enzyme in the wheat grain that makes it grow ; it is the ; enzyme in the egg that makes it hatch. He puts it 'thus ... £. • •; ' “The enzyme is like the fulminate in the cartridge: The fulminate sets off the black powder,'" and then comes the explosion. So does the enzyme in the wheat grain start the explosion of life \ in that grain when it is planted in the ground* -r • •

“ So, too,” he adds, “may the enzyme in the egg begin life in it. The hen sits upon the egg and through warmth it is hatched. But the warmth is the general cause, not the specific one. It is a parallel with the wheat grain. It may be so with all life. Matter lies inert. Conies the enzyme, the fulminate is set off and vitality begins.” In other words —tiie germ of life 1

For ages, he points out, man lias made the enzyme work for him, not knowing, not guessing, at the mystic agent he has been employing. He instances the brewer. It is the enzyme in grain that malts. The brewer will take a certain amount, of malted grain and mix with it a proportion of unmalted. He goes confidently away, knowing that when he returns all will be malted He has been employing the aifzyme “Popular Science Siftings.”