RECENT WORK IN AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE. 



CHEMISTRY. 



The albuminoid of wheat gluten, K. Morishima (Arch. Exper. 

 Path. u. Pharmakol, 41 (189S), No. 4-5, pp. 345-354).— The author 

 agrees with Osborne and Voorhees that the alcohol soluble part of 

 wheat gluten contains only 1 proteid (gliadiu) instead of 3, as stated 

 by Ritthausen. The hitter's preparations contained phosphorus, and 

 this is true of the preparations of the alcohol-insoluble proteid glutenin. 

 It was thought that possibly this phosphorus might occur as an 

 impurity; and the author attempted to determine whether proteids of 

 wheat gluten could be prepared entirely free from phosphorus. This 

 work led him to the conclusion that gluten contains only a single pro- 

 teid, to which he gives the name artolin. 



In his investigations gluten was prepared from the finest commercial 

 Hungarian wheat flour, using hydrant water with a considerable lime 

 content for washing out the starch, since, as he says, the employment 

 of distilled water gives a gluten which can not be kneaded into a com- 

 pact mass. The gluten was dissolved in a weak potassium hydrate 

 solution, the cloudy solution decanted from the sediment, and precip- 

 itated with hydrochloric acid, sufficient acid being added to give the 

 solution a strength of 1 per cent, to aid the filtration. The precipitate 

 was collected on bolting cloth, thoroughly washed with 1 per cent 

 hydrochloric acid, and treated with sufficient alcohol to give a strength 

 of 70 to 80 per cent with the water retained by the precipitate. The 

 clear solution was filtered off after a few days and the residue treated 

 with more alcohol, this being repeated until only a very small residue 

 remained. These alcoholic solutions of the gluten were united, 95 per 

 cent alcohol added until cloudy, and then precipitated with ether. 

 The precipitate, consisting of hydrochloric-acid artolin, was washed 

 with 95 per cent alcohol, and then dissolved in the smallest possible 

 amount of water, to which a little alcohol has been added, gentle heat 

 being employed. Where necessary the precipitate was purified by 

 repeated solution in alcohol and reprecipitation. Finally it was freed 

 from water by standing in strong alcohol and by drying in a vacuum 



over sulphuric acid. 



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