Protoplasm (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Protoplasm

If, therefore, anyone wishes to search out the truth of things in serious earnest, he ought not to select one special science; for all the sciences are conjoined with each other and interdependent.

Thus wrote the French philosopher René Descartes. The purpose of this book is to show the truth of this statement in the study of protoplasm. On the pages that follow are brought together all those parts of the branches of science which bear upon the physical chemistry of living matter. Obviously, there is a space limit to what can be told, but at least enough will be said to indicate how far research has gone in the applica tion of physics and chemistry to those biological phenomena which can be reduced to cellular or protoplasmic processes.

The presentation is as nontechnical as is consistent with accuracy and completeness. Mathematical formulas, curves, and tables have not been omitted - it would be difficult to do so in a number of instances where the subject defies a wholly nontechnical presentation - but they have been resorted to as infrequently as possible. A mathematical formula or a graph may, at first sight, be somewhat awe-inspiring, yet it often presents a complex situation in a simple and intelligible manner. On the other hand, it is equally true that a situation which can be clearly put into words becomes meaningless to the non mathematical mind when stated in terms of formulas and curves.

The readers for whom this book has been written are students in biology and medicine and the related fields of biophysics and biochemistry. While it is not intended for my colleagues, should this volume fall into their hands, I trust they will find it of interest.

A list of references is appended, in case the reader should care to delve more deeply into the subject of this or that chapter.

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