Abstract
UNTIL recently our knowledge of the chemistry of respiration stopped abruptly at the boundary of the cell. We knew how the oxygen was carried to it in vertebrate blood, and the carbon dioxide carried away. We also knew that the rate of oxygen consumption by the body as a whole, and by certain organs, was a function of numerous variables, such as temperature, hydrogen ion concentration, nervous stimulation, and so on. A certain number of partially oxidised metabolites, such as β-hydroxybutyric acid, had been isolated. But such quantitative knowledge as existed with regard to the details of oxidation was mainly confined to reactions in which coloured molecules were involved: for example, the reduction of methylene blue to a colourless substance, or the oxidation of p-phenylene-diamine to a coloured one.
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HALDANE, J. Oxidation by Living Cells*. Nature 128, 175–178 (1931). https://doi.org/10.1038/128175a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/128175a0