PHYSIOLOGICAL ACTION OP AMIDOSULPHONIC ACID. 



275 



solution containing in 100 cc, 6*856 grams glucose, 0*1 gram 

 magnésium sulphate, 0*2 gram monopotassium phosphate, and 0*1 

 gram sodium ainidosulphonate (A). In a second flask (B), the last 

 mentioned salt was replaced by 0*1 gram ammonium sulphate. After 

 five days, the yeast in (A) had increased 169 per cent, and that in (B) 

 223 per cent.; while of the glucose there had been fermented in (A) 

 48*8 per cent, and in (B) 55*2 per cent. 



Finally, it may be mentioned that '.upon lower aquatic animals, as 

 infusoria, rotatoria, and copepoda, calcium ainidosulphonate, in 0*1 

 per cent, solution, had no noxious action. 



The poisonous action of amidosulphonic acid upon phœnogams 

 is of considerable interest. Ammonia, in its salts, acts, noxiously also, 

 but only in higher concentration ; it is never stored up as such in plants, 

 as nitrates are, but is quickly converted into an indifferent substance, 

 aspamginc, as the recent investigations of Kinoshita and Suzuki, in the 

 College of Agriculture, Tokyo, have placed beyond doubt. It is failure 

 of the plants to convert amidosulphonic acid into an analogous 

 indifferent substance, that perhaps, gives time for the gradual action 

 of the labile amido-group upon the living protoplasm. The poisonous 

 action of the labile amido-groups in hydroxylamine and diamidogen 

 for the most varied organisms is well known. 



The fact that amidosulphonates are poisonous neither for lower 

 plants, like algœ and low fungi, nor for animals (see the Addenda to 

 this paper) still needs an explanation that shall be perfectly satis- 

 factory. The corresponding carbamic acid was found by Nencki to 

 have poisonous properties for animals. 



