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PROCEEDINGS OP THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



To this theory De Bary has objected that kephir can be made 

 simply by shaking milk which is on the point of souring, such kephir 

 being called Pseudo- or Schijttelkepliir. He refers to a paper by A. 

 Levy,* of Hagenau, in which Levy claimed that ordinary sour milk 

 shaken in a flask with eight or ten parts of cold boiled milk at about 

 10° R. gave carbonic acid gas, lactic acid, alcohol, and peptone. But 

 Levy says, by shaking, the air is introduced, and the fermentation and 

 peptonization are probably brought about by micro-organisms, which 

 are very numerous in milk. Franz Kogelmanu f has also published 

 a method for obtaining kephir easily and cheaply. Take one volume 

 of ordinary buttermilk, shake with two of fresh, and there is obtained 

 a fluid " identical with kephir," containing carbonic dioxide, alcohol, 

 lactic acid, casein, etc. Notwithstanding these claims, there is some 

 doubt about the identity of Schiittelkephir and Kogelmann's kephir 

 with the true sort, as Rudeck's % table shows. 



Despite this table, however, it is not improbable that alcoholic fer- 

 mentation often does actually take place in Kogelmanu's and Levy's 

 methods, as the following paragraph may show. 



* Die wahre Natur des Kefirs. Deuts. Med. Ztg., 1886, p. 783. 



t Ueber Milchwein (Kefir). Ibid See also Pharm. Cent. Halle, XXVII. 42. 



X Pharm. Ztg. Berl., XXXIII. 420. 



