] (34 Beard, On the Occurrence of Dextro-rotatory Albumins in Organic Nature. 



My acknowledgments are due, and may be expressed here, to 

 Messrs Fair child Bros. & Foster for the two boxes of ampoules 

 of injections of trypsin and of amylopsin used in the experiments. 

 All the organisms employed in the foregoing experiments were 

 supplied by Mr. T. Bolton, 25 Balsall Heath Road, Edgbaston, 

 Birmingham. The number of animals experimented upon would 

 have been much greater, had all the organisms he sent survived 

 the transit in summer. Of course, it was only possible to use 

 organisms, which were in a healthy active condition. The seventeen 

 experiments, hitherto carried out, have established the truth of the 

 thesis, that living asexual generations of animals are attacked, 

 killed, and their albumins pulled down by solutions of the pan- 

 creatic ferments, trypsin and amylopsin (Fair child), in which 

 sexual generations of animals go on living. The following asexual 

 generations of animals exhibited the deadly pulling-down action of 

 pancreatic ferments, and thus revealed the dextro-rotatory nature 

 of their albumins: Hydra, Cordylophora, Trichodina, Vorticella, Car- 

 chesium, Amoeba, Actinosphaerium, and Stentor, eight in all 7 ). The 

 beneficent action of trypsin and amylopsin upon sexual generations 

 of animals is to me so self-evident, that it has appeared to be 

 almost a work of supererogation to make experiments in this direc- 

 tion. However, for the benefit of the sceptic, the following sexual 

 generations of animals continued to live in solutions of these fer- 

 ments, which proved to have deadly disintegrating effects upon the 

 afore-mentioned asexual generations of animals: Daphnia, a 

 Hydrachnid or water-mite, crustacean "nauplii" 8 }, Planaria, Nais, 

 and Melicerta, six in all 9 ). Zoologically, the experiment (no. X) 

 with Hydra fusca and Daphnia pulex has special interest. Daphnia 

 pulex is a common prey of Hydra. It is impossible to keep 

 Daplutia living in an aquarium containing Hydra. Even the indi- 

 viduals of Daphnia, which it does not catch and devour, Hydra 

 quickly kills with its stinging cells. More than once I had noted, 

 that if a number of the two forms, Hydra and Daphnia, were 

 associated together in a small aquarium, in the space of twenty- 

 four hours there would be no living Daphnids in the vessel. In 

 experiment X the tables were turned, and in the presence of pan- 

 creatic ferments, trypsin and amylopsin, it was Hydra, which was 



7) Eight, without mentioning the "various undetermined flagellate micro- 

 organisms'' of experiment no. VII. 



8) Crustacean "naupUi" are not "larvae" or asexual generations. For many 

 years, with the late Geheimrat Prof. Anton Dohrn, I have regarded them as 

 being immature sexual generations of Crustacea. Experiment no. V proved the 

 truth of this. 



9) Six, without including the "various undetermined 'swarm-spores' of plants" 

 of experiments nos. VII & XIV. 



