48 DEFENSIVE FERMENTS OF THE ANIMAL ORGANISM 







presence has been demonstrated in animals and 

 plants inside the most varied kinds of cells. In plants 

 they are not always found in an active state. In 

 seeds, for instance, they appear only when these are 

 beo-jnnino' to o-erminate. In the same way they are 



c5 O J J 



absent, as Iwanow has shown at my Institute, when 

 plants are resting during the winter. In the foetus 

 their presence can be demonstrated fairly early. They 

 can be detected, for instance, in a chicken on the 

 seventh day of development, while in embryos of 

 swine active peptolytic ferments appear on about the 

 fortieth day. 



The demonstration of the peptolytic ferments may 

 be performed in various ways. One way is to treat 

 them in the manner adopted by Edward Buchner, 

 namely, to entirely destroy the cells of certain tissues 

 or even single cells by trituration with quartz sand, 

 so as to squeeze out the internal fluid of the cells. 

 This fluid is afterwards mixed with kieselguhr, 

 which readily absorbs moisture from the cell frag- 

 ments, and produces a compressible plastic mass. 

 The absorbed juice is then extracted out of the latter 

 under pressure- -up to 300 atmospheres and filtered 

 through a filter candle. We get a clear juice, which 

 contains many components of the cells ; the original 

 structure of these having, of course, disappeared. In 

 a juice obtained in this manner the presence of various 

 ferment activities can be demonstrated, and it may be 



