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THE SYNTHESIS OF PROTEIDS. 



INCE Wohler, in 1828, succeeded in making urea 

 k__j artificially from its elements, the strides that organic 

 chemistry has made have been prodigious. Complex sub- 

 stances previously made only in the living laboratory of plants 

 and animals are now manufactured in the test tubes and 

 retorts of the chemist. The substances which are of most 

 importance to vital processes, the carbohydrates and the 

 proteids, are among the last to yield before this advance. 

 Fischer has, however, shown the way in which sugar may 

 be made, but the synthesis of proteids, the most complex of 

 all the compounds of carbon, is still not accomplished. There 

 are, however, signs that this last conquest of organic chem- 

 istry cannot be far off, and when it has taken place we shall 

 be nearer the settlement of many problems that now per- 

 plex the physiologist and the economist than we are at present. 

 The vexed question of the constitution of albumin will be 

 set at rest ; light will be thrown upon many physiological 

 processes that are at present obscure, and we shall be on 

 the road to determine with accuracy the components of 

 protoplasm, perhaps even in the distant future the manu- 

 facture of living material itself will not be such a hopeless 

 task as it appears to be now. Economists who paint 

 terrible pictures of how in a few centuries the land will 

 be unable to support the increased population of the globe, 

 will be comforted if only it is shown them that chemists will 

 be able to make the substances which up to now we have 

 relied upon nature to provide us with. 



I propose in the following paper to briefly sketch one 

 or two of the principal attempts that have been made in the 

 manufacture of albuminous from simpler substances. 



The products of decomposition of a proteid are extremely 

 numerous, and vary with the method adopted for their 

 decomposition. Briefly they fall into two groups, the fatty 

 compounds generally containing an amidogen radicle, and 

 the aromatic compounds or derivatives of benzene. Our 



