Note 268

The colloid-chemical state [= larger particles in permanent suspension] is, despite all usefulness (equivalent with indispensableness), negligible relative to the substance which itself and only itself is living (in which one may speak of a special bio-chemical state, which state the atomic constituents themselves of this defined (living) substance [already] show).

Interesting considerations about complex-coacervation [formation of gels, yellies] can be found in Zf. Naturforsch., 1957 b, S.18. [see next quotations]. In combinations of polyacids and polyamines (with a certain parallel to isoelectric gelatine, which only goes into solution when heated, otherwise remaining a semi-hetero system) one obtains, in certain conditions, not simply a salty precipitation, but a complex multicomponent system. Such a system is not homogeneously isotropic and has blurred phase boundaries (phase erasion), i.e. no phase boundaries satisfying the physical definition. Perhaps also expressing it as a zone-oriented or range-oriented anisotropic one-phase system would be appropriate.

Similar are the symplexes. The authors mean "that in biology there very often are naturally ordered structures out of 2 macromolecular (typecorrelative) components, for instance nucleic acids with proteins (cytoplasm and chromosomes), or actine and myosine (muscle fibrilles), or mucoitinsulferic acid with proteins (mesenchym tissue). The bonding relationships also here could go through symplex-ionotropics." [ionic directedness]. It is a consideration having above all the advantage to present a new form of structure-formation and therefore not burdening itself with the contradictions implied by the analogy with old classic model structural forms.  "Special features :  without being a crystallization, here ordered structures are formed from unordered components (? this depends on how one looks at things, or it is just a matter of definition), whereas otherwise a reaction between unordered partners results in unordered products too." [Such considerations, as presented here by Müller, are not altogether very clear, but may eventually become clear after having studied chemical reactions between large molecules, ionic relationships among them, and after having studied the physical and chemical nature of the various colloid systems.]

" The in the organismic domain common reversible sol-gel transformations [i.e. transformations from liquid colloidal solution into (more or less) solid colloidal solution] may, in an unconstrained fashion, be considered in the sense of formation and dissolution of ionotropic symplexes. Also native structures consisting of  one  macromolecular component can be formed via a symplex gel if the second component is later, purely chemically or fermentatively, removed again. So in algae a protein may have served as partner in (spatial) orientation" [i.e. may have served as a device that orients a product in the right direction].

"Gels of ordered poly-amphi-ions may have, as ordered uni-complexes without a second component, could have been formed merely by a change of  pH  [degree of acidity], if we would only know the mechanism ((unimol??)) of wicker-work formation." ( Morphogenetically, the described states of affairs could play a significant auxiliary role).

" The collagen fibrilles are possibly formed also within connective tissue from soluble pre-stages of collagen under directive pressure by the mucopolysacharid chains .... The chondroitinsulferic acid may largely be responsible for the glue function."

With the last view we, already by chemical reasons, cannot agree.

How does one imagine the long-range stability of a pure system [i.e. a true system], which, from a colloid-chemical viewpoint, would be a demixing (separating) system, and which, on the one hand, would have an unexpected sensibility for physically and chemically hardly demonstrable influences, but, on the other hand, at the same time being a hard-to-miss system and also a  system  resistant against fairly gross physical and chemical influences, a system of frozen equilibria and undercooled solutions. Of course one may concoct a  system  of clarifications (for each single kind of condition, seen in isolation, one can also create experimental conditions, for instance emulgators and shield colloids, or stabilizing stocks, etc.). Unimol doesn't know of these difficulties, and only has to further specify a number of secondary phenomena and particulars.

A colloid-chemical theory of development is possible, but it would then first and foremost be a  description  ordered to colloid-chemical phenomena, a description that could perhaps be more or less without gaps, but a description that would not possess true  explanational  value. Colloid-chemical states can hardly act as causes, but always only be effects. That what they constitute is precisely the colloid-chemical effect. Colloid chemistry doesn't create [mediate] properties of substances [material properties], but the substances, under certain conditions, take up special properties, physico-chemical states lying "between" [among] the normal and most common states, and therefore form the substrate of colloid chemistry. Because, with every given substance, one can give another one into which the first is not molecularly soluble, theoretically every substance whatsoever can be forced into the "colloid state" as a generally possible state of matter. [meaning : every substance, with its particles of the right dimensions, may be suspended in a medium (and so forming a colloidal solution) into which it is not molecularly soluble (i.e. in which its molecules cannot be dispersed, but only larger clusters of them) ].

Back to main text