The Mechanism of Life Part 14

Whatever our opinion as to its signification, osmotic growth demands the attention of every mind devoted to the study of nature. It is a marvellous spectacle to see a formless fragment of calcium salt grow into a sh.e.l.l, a madrepore, or a fungus, and this as the result of a simple physical force.

Why should the study of osmotic growth attract less attention than the formation of crystals, on which so much time and labour has been bestowed in the past?

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CHAPTER XII

THE PHENOMENA OF LIFE AND OSMOTIC PRODUCTIONS--A STUDY IN PHYSIOGENESIS

It is impossible to define life, not only because it is complex, but because it varies in different living beings. The phenomena which const.i.tute the life of a man are far other than those which make up the life of a polyp or a plant; and in the more simple forms life is so greatly reduced that it is often a matter of difficulty to decide whether a given form belongs to the animal, vegetable, or mineral kingdom. Considering the impossibility of defining the exact line of demarcation between animate and inanimate matter, it is astonishing to find so much stress laid on the supposed fundamental difference between vital and non-vital phenomena.

There is in fact no sharp division, no precise limit where inanimate nature ends and life begins; the transition is gradual and insensible, for just as a living organism is made of the same substances as the mineral world, so life is a composite of the same physical and chemical phenomena that we find in the rest of nature. All the supposed attributes of life are found also outside living organisms. Life is const.i.tuted by the a.s.sociation of physico-chemical phenomena, their harmonious grouping and succession.

Harmony is a condition of life.

We are quite unable to separate living beings from the other productions of nature by their composition, since they are formed of the same mineral elements. All the aliments of plants--water, carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, sulphur--before their absorption and a.s.similation belonged to the mineral kingdom. The carbon and the water are transformed into {148} sugar and fat, the nitrogen and the sulphur into alb.u.men, and the compounds so formed are then said to belong to the organic world. These organic bodies are returned once again to the mineral world by the action of animals and microbes, which transform the carbon into carbonates, and the nitrogen, sulphur, and phosphorus into nitrates, sulphates, and phosphates. Hence life is but a phase in the animation of mineral matter; all matter may be said to have within itself the essence of life, potential in the mineral, actual in the animal and the vegetable. The flux and reflux of matter is alternate and incessant, from the mineral world to the living, and back again from the living to the mineral world.

At the same time there is a continuous flux of energy. Organic matter contains potential energy, the energy of chemical combination; and during its pa.s.sage through the living being it is gradually stripped of this energy and returned to the mineral world. The first step in synthetic biology is the addition of potential energy to matter, the reduction of an oxide, the separation of a salt into its radicals, the production of some endothermic chemical combination. The energy stored up by such processes can be again liberated as heat, that fire which the ancients with wonderful prescience long ago recognized as the symbol of life.

Attempts have been made to differentiate a living being by the nature of its chemical combinations, the so-called organic compounds. It was supposed that life alone could realize these and cause the production of the various substances which form the structure of living beings. Of late years, however, a large number of these organic substances have been artificially produced in the laboratory, and the synthetic problems which remain are of the same order as those which have been already solved.

As one learns to know the mineral kingdom and the living world more intimately the differences between them disappear. Thus a living being was supposed to be characterized by its sensibility, _i.e._ its faculty of reaction against external impressions. But this reaction is a general phenomenon of nature; there is no action without reaction. Neither can the {149} reaction to internal impressions, immediate or deferred, be considered as the characteristic of life, since osmotic growths exhibit a most exquisite sensibility in this direction. Since, then, the faculty of reaction is a general property of matter, the characteristics of life in the lower organisms are only three in number, viz. nutrition, growth, and reproduction by fission or budding. But crystals are also nourished and grow in the water of crystallization. They have moreover a specific form, and every biologist who wishes to establish a parallel between the phenomena of the living and the mineral world is wont to compare living beings with crystals. Crystals, it is said, affect regular geometric forms, salient angles, and rectilinear edges, while living beings have rounded forms without any geometric regularity. Another supposed distinction is that living beings are nourished by intussusception, whereas crystals increase by apposition. Again, living beings are said to a.s.similate and transform the aliment they absorb, whereas crystals do not transform the matter which is added externally to their structure. Another supposed difference is that living things eliminate and discharge their products of combustion, while the evolution of a crystal is accompanied by no such elimination. Finally, the phenomenon of reproduction is said to be the exclusive characteristic of a living being; but crystals may also be reproduced and multiplied by the introduction of fragments of crystalline matter into a supersaturated solution.

The resemblance between an osmotic growth and a living organism is much closer than that between a living being and a crystal, there being not only an a.n.a.logy of form, but also of structure and of function. In order to find the physical parallel to life, we must turn to osmosis and osmotic growth rather than to crystals and crystallization.

The first and most striking a.n.a.logy between living beings and osmotic growths is that of form. The morphogenic power of osmosis gives rise to an infinite variety of forms. An osmotic growth, even at the first sight, suggests the idea of a living thing. One need only glance at the photographs of osmotic productions to recognize the forms of madrepore, fungus, alga, and sh.e.l.l. It is wonderful that a force capable {150} of such marvellous results should have hitherto been almost entirely neglected.

A second a.n.a.logy between vital and osmotic growths is to be found in their structure, both being formed by groups of cells or vesicles separated by osmotic membranes. An osmotic stem, formed by a row of cellular cavities separated by osmotic membranes, has a great structural resemblance to the knotted stems of bamboos, reeds, and the like. The foliaceous expansions of osmotic growths are formed by colonies of cells or vesicles disposed in regular lines, which may present various patterns of innervation, parallel, palmate, or pennate. Many of the lamellar osmotic growths are striped in parallel lines alternately opaque and transparent. The terminal organs have also their enveloping membranes, their pulp and nucleus, just like vegetable forms.

The a.n.a.logies of function are no less remarkable than those of form and structure. Nutrition is perhaps the most elementary and essential vital phenomenon, since without nutrition life cannot exist. Nutrition consists in the absorption of alimentary substances from the surrounding medium, the chemical transformation of such substances, their fixation by intussusception in every part of the organism, and the ejection of the products of combustion into the surrounding medium. Osmotic growths absorb material from the medium in which they grow, submit it to chemical metamorphosis, and eject the waste products of the reaction into the surrounding medium. An osmotic growth moreover exercises choice in the selection of the substances which are offered for its consumption, absorbing some greedily and entirely rejecting others. Thus osmotic growths present all the phenomena of nutrition, the fundamental characteristic of life.

In the living organism nutrition results in growth, development, and evolution. Growth and development also follow the absorption and fixation of aliment by an osmotic production. An osmotic production grows, its form develops and becomes more complicated, and its weight increases. An osmotic growth may weigh many hundred times as much as the mineral sown in the solution, the mother liquor losing a {151} corresponding weight. Thus growth, which has. .h.i.therto been considered an essential phenomenon of life, is also a phenomenon common to all osmotic productions.

Osmotic growths like living things may be said to have an evolutionary existence, the a.n.a.logy holding good down to the smallest detail. In their early youth, at the beginning of life, the phenomena of exchange, of growth, and of organization are very intense. As they grow older, these exchanges gradually slow down, and growth is arrested. With age the exchanges still continue, but more slowly, and these then gradually fail and are finally completely arrested. The osmotic growth is dead, and little by little it decays, losing its structure and its form.

The membranes of an osmotic growth thicken with age, and thus oppose to the osmotic exchanges a steadily increasing resistance. Young osmotic cells appear swollen and turgescent, whereas old ones become flaccid, relaxed, and wrinkled. a.n.a.logous phenomena are met with in living organisms, the calcareous infiltration of the vessels representing the thickening and hardening of the osmotic membranes. The plumpness of a child and the turgescence of young cells are but the expression of high osmotic tension, while relaxation and flaccidity of the tissues in old age betrays the fall of osmotic pressure in the intracellular tissues.

Circulation of the nutrient fluid may also be observed in an osmotic growth as in a living organism. If we take a calcareous growth with long ramified stems and dilute the mother liquor considerably, we may see currents of liquid issuing from the summit of the growth--currents which are made visible by the cloudy precipitates which they cause. The same current is also rendered visible in the stems themselves by the motion of the granulations and gas bubbles in the interior of the osmotic cells. It is plain that some such circulation must exist, for how could a membrane be formed 30 centimetres from the seed if the membranogenous substance did not circulate through the stem? A moment's consideration will show that the propulsion is due to osmotic pressure and not to mere differences of density, for the liquid {152} which rises in the stem is a concentrated solution of calcium salt much denser than the mother liquor, and the current of liquid after rising in the stem may be seen to fall back again through the liquid.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 61.--A group of osmotic forms.]

Organization has long been considered as one of the princ.i.p.al characteristics of life, _i.e._ the arrangement of matter so as to produce an animated and evolutionary form accompanied by transformation of energy.

But osmotic growths are also organizations endowed with the same faculties, and the physical mechanism which is at the basis of their formation is the same as that which determines the organization of living matter.

The phenomena of osmotic growth show how ordinary mineral matter, carbonates, phosphates, silicates, nitrates, and chlorides, may imitate the forms of animated nature without {153} the intervention of any living organism. Ordinary physical forces are quite sufficient to produce forms like those of living beings, closed cavities containing liquids separated by osmotic membranes, with tissues similar to those of the vital organs in form, colour, evolution, and function.

It is only necessary to glance at the photographs of these osmotic growths to appreciate the wonderful variety of form. The variety of function is not less evident, and in many instances, especially with manganese salts, the difference of function of various regions is marked by differences of colour. When a large osmotic cell projects beyond the mother liquor and grows up into the air, it is evident that the function of liquid absorption must be localized in the submerged part. In other cases we have a local evolution of gas, which may be demonstrated by growing a fragment of calcium chloride in a mother liquor composed of the following saturated solutions:--

Pota.s.sium carbonate 76 parts.

Pota.s.sium sulphate 16 "

Tribasic pota.s.sium phosphate 46 "

During the whole period of growth there is an abundant liberation of bubbles of gas, which is accurately limited to a belt around the base of the growth, and sometimes also to a cap at the summit.

Since morphological differentiations of different parts is but the result of differences of evolution, _i.e._ of functional differences of the various parts, we may consider that osmotic growths possess the faculty of organization like living beings.

An osmotic growth may be wounded, and a wound delays its growth and development like a disease or an accident in a living being. A wound in an osmotic production may also become cicatrized and covered with a membrane, when the growth will recommence exactly as in a living being.

An osmotic growth is a transformer of energy. It increases in bulk, pushing aside the mother liquor, and thus doing external work. An osmotic growth has a temperature above its medium, since the chemical reaction of which it is the seat is accompanied by the production of heat. We know {154} but little of the transformation of energy which takes place in an osmotic production, but we may say with certainty that it is capable of transforming both chemical energy and osmotic energy into heat and mechanical motion.

An osmotic production is the arena of complicated chemical phenomena which produce a veritable metabolism. It has long been known that diffusion and osmosis may determine various chemical transformations. H. St. Clair Deville has demonstrated that certain unstable salts are partially decomposed by diffusion. Thus during the diffusion of alum, the sulphate of potash is separated from the sulphate of aluminium. Similarly, when the chloride or acetate of aluminium is caused to diffuse, the acids become separated from the aluminia. This decomposition is the result of the different resistance which the medium offers to the diffusion of different ions. This difference of resistance may even cause a difference of potential between two media, similar to the differences of potential in living organisms. Frequently also a difference of hydration in the chemical substances on either side of an osmotic membrane will determine a chemical reaction, which like all other chemical reactions is accompanied by a corresponding transformation of energy. The study of these chemical metamorphoses and the transformations of energy in osmotic growths has opened up a new subject for experimental investigation in the field of organic chemistry.

_Coagulation._--There is a most remarkable a.n.a.logy between the phenomena of coagulation as seen in living beings and the phenomena which occur when the liquid in the interior of an osmotic growth comes into contact with the mother liquor. When the sap of a plant or the blood of an animal escapes into the air or water of the surrounding medium, it coagulates, _i.e._ it changes from a liquid to a gelatinous consistency. In the same way, when the liquid in the interior of an osmotic growth leaks out into the mother liquor it forms a gelatinous precipitate. This gelatinous precipitation is a physico-chemical phenomenon of the same nature as coagulation. It is by the study of coagulation in liquids less complex than blood that we may hope to elucidate the mechanism of the process, {155} which is simply a physico-chemical phenomenon exactly a.n.a.logous to gelatinous precipitation.

Calcium phosphate is always p.r.o.ne to coagulate; it has been called the gelatinous phosphate of lime, and we have already seen how readily tribasic calcium phosphate takes the form of beautiful transparent colloidal membranes which are gelatinous in texture.

We may obtain colloidal precipitates exactly a.n.a.logous to coagulated alb.u.min by mixing a weak solution of chloride of calcium with pota.s.sium carbonate or tribasic phosphate. Like alb.u.min this precipitate forms flakes, and is deposited slowly as a gelatinous colloidal ma.s.s. Like alb.u.min also this calcic solution is coagulated by heat; a solution of a calcic salt of a volatile acid on heating forms a precipitate which has all the appearance of alb.u.min coagulated by heat.

Finally, Arthus and Pages have shown that blood does not coagulate when deprived of its calcium salts by the addition of alkaline oxalates, fluorides, or citrates, and that the blood thus treated recovers its coagulability on the addition of a soluble salt of calcium. The coagulation of milk is also a calcium salt precipitation. Coagulation therefore would seem to be merely the colloidal precipitation of a salt of calcium.

Diffusion and osmosis are the elementary phenomena of life. All vital phenomena result from the contact of two colloidal solutions, or of two liquids separated by an osmotic membrane. Hence the study of the physics of diffusion and osmosis is the very basis of synthetic biology.

A living being exhibits two sorts of movements, those which are the result of stimulus from without, and those which are determined by an excitation arising from within. In the higher animals the stimulus or exciting energy coming from the entourage may be infinitely small when compared with the amount of energy transformed. Moreover, the response to an identical excitation may so vary as to give to these different responses an appearance of spontaneity. There is in reality no spontaneity, since the difference in response is governed by previous external impressions which have left their record on the machinery. There is in fact no such thing as a spontaneous action, since every action of a living {156} being has as its ultimate cause a stimulus or excitation coming from without.

The movements of the second category are also conditioned by an excitation, but the stimulus comes from within the organism. These movements consist princ.i.p.ally of changes of nutrition, or movements of the circulation and respiration; they are rhythmic in character and are probably produced by the same chemico-physical causes which determine rhythmic movements outside the living body.

Just in the same way osmotic growths present two sorts of movements, external movements and those which are connected with their nutrition. A free osmotic growth swimming in the mother liquor will alter its position and form under the influence of the slightest exterior excitation or vibration. It responds to every variation of temperature, or to a slight difference of concentration produced by adding a single drop of water, and reacts to every exterior influence by displacement or deformation.

An osmotic growth also shows indications of movements which are connected with its nutrition, and these movements are rhythmic, like those of respiration or circulation in a living organism. The growth of an osmotic production shows itself not as a continuous process but periodically. The water traverses the membrane, raises the pressure, and distends the cell; at first the cell wall resists by reason of its elasticity, it then suddenly relaxes, yielding to the osmotic pressure and bulging out at a thinner spot on the surface; the internal pressure falls suddenly, and there is a pause in the growth.

This rhythmic growth may be best observed by sowing in a solution of a tribasic alkaline phosphate, pellets composed of powdered calcium chloride moistened with glycerine, to which has been added 1 per cent. of mon.o.basic calcium phosphate. The experiment is so arranged as to bend or incline the growing stems which shoot out from these grains. This may be done by carefully pouring above the mother liquor a layer of water, or a less concentrated solution. As the internal osmotic pressure rises, the drooping extremity of the twig will become turgescent and gradually lift itself {157} up, and then suddenly fall again for several millimetres. We have frequently watched this rhythmic movement for an hour or more--a slow gradual elevation of the extremity of the twig and a rapid fall recurring every four seconds or so.

It may be objected that the substance of an osmotic growth is continually undergoing change, whereas a living organism transforms into its own substance the extraneous matter which it borrows from its environment. The distinction, however, is only an apparent one. The substance of a living being is also continually undergoing chemical change; it does not remain the same for a single instant. We see an evidence of this change in the evolution of age; the substance of the adult is not that of the infant. In some living organisms such as insects, especially the ephemeridae who have but a brief existence, this change of substance is even more rapid than that in an osmotic growth.

It has been objected that osmotic productions cannot be compared with living organisms since they contain no alb.u.minoid matter. This is to consider life as a substance, and to confound the synthesis of life with that of alb.u.min. If alb.u.min is ever produced by synthesis in the laboratory it will probably be dead alb.u.min. All living organisms contain alb.u.min; this is probably due to the fact that alb.u.minoid matter is particularly adapted for the formation of osmotic membranes. Our osmotic productions are composed of the same elements as those which const.i.tute living beings; an osmotic growth obtained by sowing calcium nitrate in a solution of pota.s.sium carbonate with sodium phosphate and sulphate contains all the princ.i.p.al elements of a living organism, viz. carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, sulphur, and phosphorus.

The whole of the vegetable world is produced by the osmotic growth of mineral substances, if we except the small amount of organic matter contained in the seeds.

The most important problem of synthetic biology is not so much the synthesis of the alb.u.minoids as the reduction of carbonic acid. In nature this reduction is accomplished by the radiant energy of the sun, by the agency of the catalytic action of chlorophyll. {158}

The physico-chemical study of osmotic growth is as yet hardly begun; we have but indicated the method, the way is open, and the problems awaiting solution are legion. Only work and ever more work and workers are required.

Experiments should be made with substances which are chemically unstable like the alb.u.minoids, substances which readily combine and dissociate again, alternately absorbing and giving up the potential energy which is the essence of life. Experiments should also be made with substances which readily unite or decompose under the influence of water, since hydration and hydrolysis appear to be the dominant mechanism in all vital reaction, as they undoubtedly are in osmotic growth, which consists of an increase of hydration on one side of an osmotic membrane and a diminution on the other side.

Life is not a substance but a mechanical phenomenon; it is a dynamic and kinetic transference of energy determined by physico-chemical reactions; and the whole trend of modern research leads to the belief that these reactions are of the same nature as those met with in the organic world. It is the grouping of physical reactions and their mode of a.s.sociation and succession, their harmony in fact, which const.i.tutes life. The problem we have to solve in the synthesis of life is the proper attuning and harmonizing of these physical phenomena, as they exist in living beings, and there should be no absolute impossibility in our some day realizing this harmony in whole or in part.

Albert Gaudry says: "I cannot conceive why in determining the connecting links of the animal world the fact that an organic body is formed of such and such elements should be of greater importance than the manner in which these elements are grouped. Descartes regarded extension as the essential property of an organized being; he supposed it to be inert of itself, and that it had the Deity for its motive force. To-day the hypothesis of Descartes has given way to that of Leibnitz, who regards force as the essential property of the living being, the visible and tangible matter being only of secondary importance. If we regard the living being as a force, this force is able to aggregate matter under such and such a form, {159} with such or such a structure, and such or such a chemical essence.

It does not seem that the cla.s.sification depending on differences of substance are any more important than those which depend on differences of form."

The biological interest of osmotic productions is quite independent of the chemical nature of the substances which enter into their growth. All substances which produce osmotic membranes by the contact of their solutions exhibit phenomena a.n.a.logous to those of nutrition. Osmotic morphogenesis is a physical phenomenon resulting from the contact of the most diverse substances. It has given us our first glimpse of the manner in which a living being may be supposed to have been formed according to the ordinary physical laws of nature. We cannot at present produce osmotic growths with all the combinations found in living beings, but that is only because chemistry still lags far behind physics in the synthesis of organic forms.