The inborn factors in disease : an essay / by Archibald E. Garrod.

  • Garrod, Archibald E. (Archibald Edward), Sir, 1857-1936.
Date:
1931
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: The inborn factors in disease : an essay / by Archibald E. Garrod. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    CHEMICAL BASIS OF INDIVIDUALITY 45 The number of possible groupings of the several fractions, in which each fraction is represented only once, is very great indeed, and when it is considered that the proportions of individual amino-acids vary widely and that one or more may be missing from the molecule of any individual protein, it is obvious that the possible combinations and groupings must exceed in numbers even the figures with which astronomers have to deal. It cannot be doubted that natural selection works through chemical as well as structural modifications, nor that the features in which an organism differs from type are foreshadowed in the molecular complexes of the chromosomes. In an address delivered in 1926, J. B. Leathes/ pointed out that all which needs to be premised in order that the whole course of evolution may follow, is the disposition of matter in molecules or aggregates which shall be unstable and immensely variable; and that such matter shall have and retain the power to determine the deposition of other matter in conformity with its own pattern, or with patterns which enable it to exercise such power. It may be supposed that, as evolution has proceeded, organisms have been produced which differ in chemical structure, as well as in their forms, until the proteins of a group of living things have become so far differentiated that they behave as foreign proteins towards members ^ Loc. cit., sub. I.