"Ana-Katergy "

This cabalistic word is a condensed name for a new theory of energy and the origin of life which is challenging the appreciative interest of physicists, chemists and biologists on two continents. It is a brain-child of Frank C. Eve, English physiologist.

All nature, both organic and inorganic, is the theatre of a constant stream of energy, of which the sunshine is practically the sole source on earth. Food and fuel are reservoirs of potential energy. In a flowing river it is kinetic; when dammed up, it is potential. This energy is constantly tending to flow to a lower level or potential, whereby it turns itself into less available forms of energy, and eventually into low-temperature heat. This process Dr. Eve calls " katergy" (kata-energy, or downflow of energy).

But sometimes katergy encounters in its flow energy-transforming substances, which take a fraction of the total energy and turn it into a higher form. This he calls " anergy" (ana-energy, or upflow of energy).

Anergy can never exceed katergy, and there is always some part dissipated into less useful forms in the inevitable downward flow.

Now continued life can exist only where there are five essential conditions: 1) the driving-force, which Dr. Eve finds in the law of ana-katergy; 2) a source of energy (the sun); 3) raw material (the organic carbon compounds); 4) an energy-transformer (like chlorophyll); 5) some means of renewing the raw material (bacteria or ferments of some kind), which would not have to exist until all the raw material was exhausted. Fascinating experiments by Moore, Baly and other English workers, have shown that sunlight, unaided, can turn carbonic acid and nitrates into sugar and other complex organic substances hitherto thought possible only as products of a living cell.

Thus, presumably, in that dim dawn millions of years ago, the sun-light played upon the seawater, full of dissolved carbonates and nitrates, and knitted them up into food. By anergy, these were transformed into slimes and molds--the simplest forms of life--which in turn produced more carbonates, as an animal breathes out carbon dioxides for the plants to feed on. And with these gains held and consolidated, the whole miraculous life-cycle had begun.