MICROBIOLOGY AND INDUSTRY 



duction with conjunct manufacture of alcohol. The drawbacks initial- 

 ly attaching to the use of alcohol in petrol combustion engines appear 

 to have been conquered satisfactorily both in South Africa and in 

 Australia. Hence the future of the biochemical alcohol manufacture 

 seems to be assured. 



While discussing this industry I cannot forego mentioning specific- 

 ally the successful application, in France and a few other countries, of 

 the 'amylo-process', because this supplies one of the outstanding ex- 

 amples of the imaginative use of micro-organisms as aids in chemical 

 technology. It also demonstrates that the primitive procedures of 

 Oriental peoples often contain the germ of a methodology that can 

 effectively be used in competition with Western processes. 



It has long been known that from olden times the Chinese have 

 possessed the secret of preparing alcoholic beverages from rice. For 

 this purpose they use a material that has commonly been designated 

 by European investigators as 'Chinese yeast', and that was first stud- 

 ied in 1885 by Calmette in Indo-China.* According to a formula ob- 

 tained by Calmette, the preparation of 'Chinese yeast' requires no less 

 than 46 ingredients, most of which are parts of plants with special 

 flavouring qualities. The active principle, however, consists of the 

 microbes that are always present in these ingredients, and among 

 which a mould, probably belonging to the genus Mucor, is particularly 

 predominant. This mould has been obtained in pure culture; it is 

 characterized by a very strong diastatic power, i.e., the ability to con- 

 vert starch to sugars. 



Calmette then attempted to use the diastatic properties of this and 

 of related moulds also in Western European alcohol industry, for here, 

 too, starch-rich raw materials are converted into sugar by diastatic 

 enzymes, as, for example, in breweries, where one generally depends 

 on the diastase found in malt, i.e., germinated barley. Now the applica- 

 tion of mould diastases seems to offer a number of advantages, such as 

 the fact that the hydrolysis of starch yields virtually no non-fermen- 

 table dextrins. After many reverses Calmette's collaborators have final- 

 ly succeeded in sufficiently eliminating the practical difficulties, so 

 that a few years ago Delamar estimated that 6 million hectolitres of 

 alcohol were produced by the amylo-process. In due course the initial- 



* A very similar product is generally available in the Dutch East Indies under the 

 name 'ragi'; it was investigated by Went and Prinsen Geerligs. 



171 



