Water
Water usually forms about 50% to90% part of living protoplasm. Life upon earth originated in the ocean and the conditions of that aqueous primeval environment have been retained by organisms as the basis integral part of their chemistry. All organisms bave been designed around the4 special properties of water. Some important properties of water are.
(1) As the best solvent in nature, it forms the base fluid matrix of protoplasm. All other constituents of protoplasm are its solutes.
(2) Benign an ideal dispersion medium. it causes Brownian movement of colloid particles, resulting into their collision and mutual bombardment. This facilitates reactivity between the various compounds necessary maintaining protoplasm in line state. Thus it serves as the essential medium in which all metabolic activities of protoplasm occur.
(3) It causes streaming or cyclosis in protoplasm, facilitating its chemical exchange with the environment, and transportation of from one part of the body to the others.
(4) Dissociating into H and OH ions, it become a very good electrolytic solvent, making protoplasm amphoteric. Moreover, it itself participates in certain types of chemical reaction particularly in the hydrolytic breakdown of complex compounds.
(5) Having a high specific heat coefficient. it minimises temperature variations and, thus protects protoplasm against ill effects of sudden rise or fall of temperature in the environment.