  While the above could readily be explained by atomism, an anti-atomist could still accept the experimental correlations by interpreting molecular weights as those yielded by chemical formulae independently of an atomic interpretation. Ostwald took that course.  The move became less plausible once the phenomena were extended to include solutions of non-electrolytes. For electrolytes, physical phenomena such as modification of boiling and freezing points and osmotic pressure could be explained in terms of the concentration of ions rather than molecules, where the ions were the charged atoms or complexes of atoms employed by the atomists to explain electrolysis. This enabled new experimental connections to be forged between, for example, osmotic pressure, and the conductivity of electrolytes. What is more, the charges that needed to be attributed to ions to explain electrolysis were themselves linked to the valencies of the chemists. The atomic interpretation of electrolysis required a corresponding atomistic interpretation of electric charge, with each monovalent ion carrying a single unit of charge, a bi-valent ion carrying two such units and so on.