276 ON THE FECULA OF GREEN JPLANTS. 



opinion of its illuftrious author, Rouelle had confounded al- 

 bumen with the gluten, and the detail of his fuppofed miftake 

 was confidered as a matter of indifference in the hiftory of 

 chemiftry. 

 Rouelle firft dif- Rouelle however found in the fecula of forrel, a product fo 



covered the pe- am pi y poflefiing the chemical properties of albumen, that he 

 cuhar animal- r . J \ . « . . f ,, . . ri . 



ized fubftance of particularly iniifted upon it in order to fix the attention or his 



the green fecula, time upon a fubftance fo animalized; and as he afterwards 

 obtained it from a plant, which, according to Fourcroy, does 

 not yield the flighteft trace of albumen, it is now inconteft- 

 able, as it was then, that Rouelle was the firft who disco- 

 vered in the juices and green feculse aproduSi which, if not 

 intitled to the name of albumen, pofTefles, neverthelefs fo 

 ftrongly, all the properties by which the attention of chemiits 

 has been called exclusively to it, that it is no lefs proper to be 

 urged in the hiftory of their difcoveries, than albumen itfelf. 

 and the identity It is to the fame penetrating eye, the fame impulfe of ge- 

 cf , ve ?' 8 lutcn nius which led him to anticipate difcovery, that he is indebted 

 for that of the aftonifliing refemblance between cafeum and 

 gluten, when they have both undergone that fpecies of fermen- 

 tation which transforms them into the cellular combination, the 

 ddorous and favory compound, called cheefe. And the gluten, 

 in this fingular refult, refembles the other more completely 

 the more carefully it has been warned. Macquer, when he 

 publifhed what continues to be every where repeated, that 

 part of thefe changes were occafioned by fome remains of 

 ftarch, was incorrect in his notion. Starch, a fubftance al- 

 ways inactive in fermentation, in that of bread, of beer, and 

 even in germination, could only retard the effect produced by 

 the gluten itfelf, and confequently could only deftroy, in part, 

 thofe characters, from which Rouelle ftated the refemblance of 

 thefe two products. 

 Peculiar fer- And even their analyfis extends far beyond the limits af- 



mentathm of figned to them ; for when the gluten has changed its in lipid 

 and vifcous mucofity for the cheefy ftate ; when it has gone 

 through all the ftages of that fermentation which is eflential to 

 that condition, it is found alfo to have acquired the tafte of 

 thofe (harp and burning falts which conftitute the principal me- 

 rit of the Roquefort cheefe; falts which have nothing in com- 

 mon with what is added, but are found equally powerful in 

 the curd which has been warned and left to its own fermen- 

 tation. 



I In 



cheefe. 



