PERFORMANCE OF THE EXPERIMENT 1/9 



So much of the tissues as are necessary for the 

 experiments to be performed are taken, and to them 

 is added at. most five times their quantity of water. 

 If any difficulty arises in the boiling, which may be 

 traced to the insufficient quantity of tissue used, then 

 more tissue is added, the excess of the organ being 

 immediately put back into the bottle that contains 

 the rest, in case it may be wanted later on. If the 

 organ is left Ivino- about for anv time it becomes 



o o 



infected. An organ should never be boiled without 

 being previously tested. It should not show any 

 places that contain blood. 



Further, the tissue must be shredded into small 

 particles before it is boiled. It would be a great 

 mistake to boil the tissues in large pieces and 

 to use them later in the form of little pieces, for 

 it might often happen that inside the big pieces pro- 

 ducts were enclosed which diffuse and react with 

 ninhydrin, and they would not be noticed because 

 they have not reached the outside. If, for instance, 

 a lentil is boiled as a whole, the water does not readily 

 show any ninhydrin reaction, but as soon as the lentil 

 is broken up and boiled an intense reaction is 

 observed. In the process of boiling the outer part 

 coagulates, and thus tightly encloses the inner con- 

 tents. Exactly the same thing may happen with 

 other tissues. Therefore, before the experiment, the 

 organ must be boiled in the same way as it is intended 

 to be used, i.e., in a shredded form. 



