7O OTTO GLASER. 



lar effects were noticed on sea-water, but they develop less rapidly 

 and, within the time limit of these experiments, never equaled the 

 effects gotten with egg-secretion. 



With Sudan III., in the early stages of an experiment, peripheral 

 elimination and precipitation of the dye on either sea-water or 

 distilled is questionable. On egg-secretion, however, there is no 

 doubt. The outlines of the discs become exceedingly irregular; 

 there is marked surface concentration of the stain, and very minute 

 particles of it are precipitated densely about the periphery. After 

 12 hours the oil discs are quite gone. In place of them one finds 

 irregular islands, stained with Sudan III. After 24 hours a rancid 

 odor is noticeable. 



With pulverized charcoal exactly comparable results can be 

 gotten, only the surface changes are even more striking. After 24 

 hours the islands on egg-water can be distinguished macroscopi- 

 cally from their controls, partly because of their greater irregu- 

 larity, and partly because they have become vesiculated. 



If the differences noted are due to the activities of a lipolytic 

 ferment, then solutions known to contain fat-splitting enzymes 

 should reproduce these differences. Attempts were made with 

 two products, the one labeled Pancreatin and of unknown origin, 

 the other a Parke-Davis preparation with the trade name Holadin. 

 Both of these, especially in experiments in which charcoal was 

 used, gave very striking effects and, after 24 hours, the irregular 

 vesiculated islands could be distinguished even macroscopically 

 from their controls. 



III. 



In these first experiments I made no attempt to control bacterial 

 action. Whatever may be true after six, twelve, or twenty-four 

 hours, the earliest noticeable differences between the oil discs on 

 exudate and on sea-water became apparent so quickly that bacterial 

 digestion seems unlikely. This fact, therefore, warrants a more 

 careful examination of the fat-splitting properties of the secretion. 



I now prepared exudate as free as possible from bacterial con- 

 tamination. The females were thoroughly washed in running 

 fresh water and carefully dried. Only shed eggs were used and 

 these in filtered sea-water. The secretion itself was filtered several 



