Nutrition Investigations. 297 



ulase." Subsequently, Bourquelot (289) found inulase in Asper- 

 gillus niger and Penicillium glaucum; and Chevastelon (291) showed 

 that this enzyme would hydrolyze the inulin of the monoctyledons. 

 Dean (293) has studied the properties of inulase exhaustively, and 

 shown that in Aspergillus and Penicillium it exists only as an endo- 

 enzyme. Went (327) has found inulase also in Monilia sitophila and 

 other Amylomyces. 



LEVULANASES IN ANIMALS. 



The first instance of an inulase in an animal organism has been 

 cited by Strauss (319). In 1908, he reported studies on the enzymes 

 of seven species of Lepidoptera and Diptera, during their various 

 stages of development {Euproctis chrysorrhea, Ocneria disparata, Bom- 

 byneustria, Bonibyx mori, Galleria nielonella, Hyponomenta, Calliophera 

 vomitoria), but found inulase present only in the eating larvae of 

 Bombyx mori and Hyponomenta. No inulase was present in the larvae 

 of these species after they had ceased eating, nor in the pupae and 

 imagines. 



The results of Kobert (3(M) in 1903, with extracts of May beetles, 

 cross spiders, scorpions, cockroaches, ascarides, pupae of pine spiders, 

 and house flies, were entirely negative; so also have been the experi- 

 ments in vitro with digestive juices of higher animals, as shown by 

 table on following page. 



DIGESTION AND UTILIZATION BY ANIMALS. 



Inulin is hydrolyzed by very dilute acid (0.05-0.2 per cent at 40° 

 C. according to Chittenden), so that its more or less complete 

 inversion by the gastric juice is possible, and has led many to believe 

 that in spite of the negative results obtained with amylolytic enzymes 

 shown above, it might be converted into levulose, and as such be read- 

 ily utilized by the animal organism. It has therefore frequently 

 been recommended for the diet of diabetics, who show a special tol- 

 erance for levulose; in fact, simply because inulin did not reappear in 

 the urine as sugar, when fed to diabetics, its utilization has been as- 

 sumed by many, no account being taken of its possible reappearance 

 in the faeces. This reappearance is well demonstrated in an experi- 

 ment of Sandmeyer (317) in which, after feeding 80 grams of inulin 

 to a diabetic dog, over 46 grams were recovered in the faeces. 



