FiORiDA AND (California Lahoratorii-s 235 



two distinct classes of ferments, ori^anizcd and unorganized, is no loni;er 

 tenable. Enzymes have been isolated from a number of bacteria, and even 

 several from the same ori^anism, — in case ot tlie potato bacillus, 13. 

 mesentcricus vuli^atus, no less than five, viz., diastase, invertasc, rennet, a 

 protcohydrolytic enzyme and one destroying the middle lamella of vegetable 

 cells. 



Smith acknow IcJ^cd that the " constitution of enzymes [was] 

 still in dispute. Loew," he continued, " as the result of analyses, 

 considered them to be proteids closely allied to the peptones, but 

 spectrum analysis and other evidence has now made this doubtful." 

 Recently in America, Loew's natural system of the actions of 

 poisons, establishing a physiological system and arranged according 

 to prevailing views and knowledge of elementary units of the 

 animal and vegetable body, had found favor. '^ This work, or- 

 ganized on the basis of extended, positive knowledge of the cell, 

 the constituents of protoplasm, and structural and physiological 

 properties of living matter, accomplished more than the older 

 studies, either in medicine or the pathology and physiology of 

 mammals, in that more known poisonous actions were included. 

 General and special poisons were described and classified. Loew's 

 " Ein naturliches System der Giftwarkungen," dedicated to von 

 Pettenkofer on the occasion of his fifty-years' doctor-jubilee, 

 had resulted in part from the author's own research. Reviewer 

 J. Christian Bay found more reason than ever to believe that time 

 had arrived to establish " a special general physiology of animals 

 and plants." 



A year and a half later Science ^^ published Loew's study of 

 " The Synthetical Powers of Microorganisms." He, offering nu- 

 merous equations and formulas, analyzed not only organic and 

 inorganic chemical substances involved in microorganic activity 

 but also the synthetic products and by-products which the lower 

 organisms can form for life and death purposes. His interests were 

 in nutrients and the nutritive qualities of acids and other by- 

 products as much as in poisons and noxious elements, and he 

 examined the chemical activities of non-pathogenic as well as 

 pathogenic organisms. It was a work done principally from the 



**J. Christian Bay, Missouri Botanical Garden, Loew's natural system of the 

 actions of poisons. Science 22(550): 93-94, Aug. 18, 1893. 

 '"I, 23: 35-36, Jan. 19, 1894; II, 23: 144, Mar. 16, 1894. 



