The Herter lectures (New York, 1908) on the fluids of the body.

  • Starling, Ernest Henry, 1866-1927.
Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Herter lectures (New York, 1908) on the fluids of the body. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    unequalled by that of any other liquid), its ionising power over salts, we see that, having once entered into the com- position of protoplasm, it must determine many of the qualities of this material and play an important part in all the chemical and physical changes which make up what we call life. Protoplasm must be regarded as a fluid and as consisting of a solution or suspension in water of compounds of very varying complexity. It follows that all the energies which are dis- played by the living cell must be derived from the energies of substances in solution, and must therefore be derivable from and measurable in terms of osmotic energy, when taking place in the interior of the cell; of surface energy, when occurring at the dividing surface between the living cell and its environment. To these two modes of energy we must ultimately be able to refer all the manifestations of life. No substance can obtain entrance into a living organism, except it be soluble. Until solution occurs, particles of food, mechanically intro- duced into the cell protoplasm, take no part in the cycle of processes which make up the life of the cell. All the chemical changes, which we have to study under the heading of metabolism, relate to changes in and between substances in solution. It is a common practice to speak of the energy of the body as derived from the combustion of the foodstuffs. The statement is a little dangerous if it brings too strongly to our minds the image of burning coal or other combustible material, and makes us forget that the processes of oxidation, which are responsible for the production of energy in the body and give rise to the same end-products as would the combustion of foodstuffs outside the body, i.e. CO2 and H2O, really occur by continual gradations, the oxygen and the oxydate in every case being dissolved in a watery menstruum.