FIRST PART. 



ORIGINAL ARTICLES 



Industrial Retting of Textile Plants by Microbiological Action 



by 



Prof. GiAcoMo Rossi 



Director of the Institute of Agricultural Bacteriology 

 in the Royal Higher School of Agriculture at Portici, Italy. 



The search for a retting method based on bacterial action is due largely 

 to the defects existing in the methods commonly used in rural districts, 

 and also to the deficiencies in the chemical methods b}^ which it was sought 

 to replace them. 



The many chemical methods (all reducible no doubt to a single type 

 and aiming solely at dissolution of the interfibrous substances by means 

 of a reagent, the excess of which is afterwards neutralised and disposed of 

 without injury to the fibres themselves) are by the very conditions of the 

 problem incapable of yielding very satisfactory or constant results, for 

 two main reasons, one based on the anatomical nature of the textile fibres, 

 and the other on their chemical composition. 



The anatomical impediment lies in the fact that all the stalks the 

 fibres of which are to be separated are not of qviite the same age, and the 

 fibres are consequently not of the same thickness. 



Therefore the quantity cf intercellular matter to be dissolved likewise 

 cannot be the same in every respect. 



Hence, there may be an excess or deficiency of reagent, but this would 

 not matter, as the easiest course, that of an excess of reagent, might like- 

 wise be adopted. This method might be adequate if the impracticability 

 of devi-sing a specific reagent for the intercellular substances, i. e. one 

 which would attack the pectic materials exclusively without occa.sioning 

 any injury whatever to the cellulose of the fibres, did not render the 

 successful application of chemical methods impossible. 



From the basis of our knowledge of the macrochemistry and micro- 

 chemistr}' of the intercellular substances it appears impossible to devise 



