13. Through a Narrow Window
THE BIOLOGIST George Wald once compare d his work on an exceedingly s pecialized
s ubject, the vis ual pigments of the eye, to ‘a very narrow window through which at a dis tance
one can s ee only a crack of light. As one comes clos er the view grows wider and wider, until
finally through this same narrow window one is looking at the universe.’ So it is that only when
we bring our focus to bear, firs t on the individual cells of the body, then on the mi nute
structures within the cells, and finally on the ultimate reactions of molecules within these
s tructu res—only when we do this can we comprehe nd the mos t s erious and far-reaching
effects of the haphazard introduction of foreign chemicals into our inte rnal environment.
Medical research has only rather recently turned to the functioning of the individual cell in
producing the energy that is the indis pens able quality of life. The extraordinary ene rgy-
producing mechanis m of the body is basic not only to health but to life; it transcends in
importance even the mos t vital organs , for without the s mooth and effective functioning of
energy-yielding oxidation none of the body’s functions can be perf orme d. Yet the nature of
ma ny of the che micals us ed agains t ins ects , rodents , and weeds is s uch that they may s trike
directly at this system, disrupting its beautifully functioning mechanis m.
The res earch that led to our pres ent unders tanding of cellular oxidation is one of the mos t
impressive accomplishments in all biology and biochemistry. The roster of contributors to this
work includes many Nobel Prize winners. Ste p by s tep it has been going on for a quarter of a
century, drawing on even earlier work for s ome of its foundation s tones. Even yet it is not
complete in all details. And only within the past decade have all the varied pieces of research
come to form a whole so that biological oxidation could become part of the common
knowledge of biologists. Even more important is the fact that medical men who received their
basic training before 1950 have had little opportunity to realize the critical importance of the
proces s and the hazards of dis rupting it.
The ultimate work of ene rgy production is accomplis hed not in any s pecialized organ but in
every cell of the body. A living cell, like a flame, burns fuel to produce the energy on which life
depends. The analogy is more poetic than precise, for the cell accomplishes its ‘burning’ with
only the mode rate heat of the body’s normal te mpera ture. Yet all thes e billions of gently
burning little fires s park the energy of life. Should the y ceas e to burn, ‘no heart could beat, no
plant could grow upward defying gravity, no a moe ba could s wim, no s ens ation could s peed
along a nerve, no thought could flas h in the human brain,’ s aid the chemis t Eugene
Rabinowitch.
The trans formation of matte r into energy in the cell is an ever-flowing proces s , one of nature’s
cycles of renewal, like a wheel endless ly turning. Grain by grain, molecule by molecule,
carbohydrate fuel in the form of glucos e is fed into this wheel; in its cyclic passage the fuel
molecule undergoes fragmentation and a series of minute chemical changes. The c ha ng es a re
made in orde rly fas hion, s tep by s tep, each s tep directed and controlled by an enzy me of s o
specialized a function that it does this one thing and nothi ng else. At each step energy is
produced, was te products (carbon dioxide and water) are given off, and the altered molecule of
fuel is pass ed on to the next s tage. When the turning wheel comes full cycle the fuel molecule