CL Kervran
Biological Transmutation
INTRODUCTION
After many observations, some of which go back to my childhood, I have come to the conclusion that a major property of matter has until now re- mained unrecognized, namely that in nature, the pheno- menon of transmutation occurs. One natural element can change into another.
Such transmutation, once the derided dream of the old alchemist, is common practice today through the application of atomic energy. Atomic transmutation, however, requires enormous energy (about ten million times stronger than chemical energy) and is incompatible with biological energy.
Yet the evidence for biological transmutation is so overwhelming that it cannot be rejected. Facts can be checked by anyone and reproduced at will while results can be measured and weighed with ordin- ary laboratory scales,
This would imply that biological reactions, as such, are ruled by different laws than those ap- plied in vitro in nuclear physics laboratories.
As a result, I have been forced to reconsider existing theories that pertain to the structure of the atom and to offer a hypothesis that is confirmed by these biological reactions. It is expressed by reactions of a new kind in which there is always a modification (in the nucleus of the atom) equal to the displacement of a hydrogen nucleus or an oxygen nucleus. This last fact gives new insight into the role of both of these vital elements.
The results obtained have nothing to do with the reactions of nuclear physics since what we are faced with involves neither fission nor fusion.
It would appear that we are dealing with a new science, different from chemistry. (Chemistry only deals with displacements of the peripheral electrons of the atom)
Further, it appears that biology cannot be understood entirely in the terminology of chemistry for another phenomenon seems to exist at the core of the nucleus which precedes chemistry. (Chemistry can be defined as the arrangement into molecules of already-made atoms, activated by enzymes, if necessary.)
In this introductory paper it will not be possible for me to give many details of the structure of the atomic nucleus as I see it. Yet, I would at the very least like to summarize the observations that brought me to admit of the existence of transmutation.