COLLOIDS AND YOUR HEALTH

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18748, 29 December 1922, Page 10

COLLOIDS AND YOUR HEALTH

In ancient Egypt, the land where chemistry originated—the word chemistry is derived from Chemi (Egypt)—the priests were both chemists and physicians, and experi mented with simple chemicals in the treatment of disease (says the Scientific American). Most ancient scientists likewise, as well as those who flourished during the Dark and Middle Ages, were chemists as well as physicians, and applied their chemical knowledge to the cure of various human afflictions. But this close relationship between, medicine and chemistry did not endure, and it has been only very recently that it began again to bo appreciated that chemistry., could render great aid to the physician and physiologist. The progress that has been made up to the present time, since the physiological chemist began to occupy himself with the treatment of disease—a progress which has been very remarkable considering the short term of its duration—leads one to much speculation as to what our knowledge of how to cure disease would have been by this time if the modern chemist had turned his attention to medicine at the very start, or if the ancient close relation between chemistry and medicine had endured up to modern times. It is evident on the face of it that chemistry and medicine are closely related sciences. The human body is but a chemical machine, in which various chemical reactions are performed, be it the digestion, of the food as it passes trough the alimentary tract or the absorption of oxygen by the blood or the combination of the odour-producing agents in the perfume with the odour-detecting units in the mucous merabrame of the nose to produce the sensation of smell. If anything goes wrong with is—for example, if pur digestion is bad and we have dyspepsia—it is because something has happened to disturb the smooth course of tho_ chemical action of digestion. In a chemical plant if a procoss gets out of order the chemist is called in to correct it; the chemist can render important aid to the physician in correcting a deranged chemical process in the human organism. . ’ So any important development in, chemistry will have its significance in the treatment of disease. In recent years colloid chemistry has assumed the essential importance that it possessed, unknown to the chemist, ever since life came upon, this earth. Sugar will dissolve in water to give a clear solution; so will salt. Sand or dirt or finely pulverised coal will remain suspended in water, but easily separable therefrom by filtration. The colloid stands somewhere in between. It is neither a solution like the first case nor a suspension like the second. The particles of the colloid are so fine that they will pass through the ordinary filtering medium. Many industrial products are colloidal in nature, such as rubbeh, milk, glue, gelatine, etc., etc. Even at the very start Graham, the formulator of the fundamental principles of the science of colloidal chemistry, saw the importance of colloids to living matter ; n stating that “the colloidal state may be looked upon as the probable primary source of the force appearing in the phenomenon of vitality.” To-day it is generally accepted that all life processes take place in a colloidal system. This is a very important conception, and the. results that have been obtained in the treatment of disease, based on this principle, seem 'to indicate that the great fuure for chemistry in aiding the physician to cure human ailments is along colloidal chemical lines. We all know how easily milk will sour due to the formation in it of lactic acid from the decomposition of the milk sugar, lactose. The same effect can be produced instantly by introducing a drop of acid into the milk. Coagulation takes place, the albumen in the milk is precipitated. The col--loidal state of the milk is' destroyed, and the same thing can oo done with any colloidal solution. Examination of various fluids of the body have shown that they are all colloidal in nature; in fact, the muscles and tissues are also colloidal. A drop of acid in the blood will cause the albuminous matters hold in suspension therein to coagulate; in fact, the blood will coagulate when exposed to the air, a fact to which we owe the stopping of blood from a cut —otherwise we would bleed to death from every scratch—as, indeed, an unfortunate few of ns do whose blood is deficient in the coagulating agent. If we eat'something that is bad for us. with the resulting formation of acid, which gets into the blood, there is produced a mild disturbance therein which makes us ill. If we inject acid into our veins we will die, for then complete coagulation results. Even so innocent a substance ns ordinary white of egg has this effect, and it is substantially in this way that the deadly snake venoms do their work. Inasmuch as all the fluids in the body are colloidal in nature, it is evident that anything that will impair the colloidal condition must be looked upon as a source of injury to us. In the handling of colloids in the chemical plant care must always be / taken to guard against the introduction cf electrolytes—that is, substances which conduct the electric current into the process, os these substances will destroy the colloid. To remove them other substances are added. In the human body colloidal condition is the natural condition of good health. Bad health and death are caused by the formation of products within the body, due to disease germs and other causes, which are detrimental to the *rwintenanne of the healthy colloidal condition of the various fluids on which life depends. The proper

treatment to get rid of these injurious substances is to use drugs which will promote the colloidal state and bring- back to its original status, and this is doubtless the way in which most drugs work.'