GERMINATION. 821 
to the filtered liquid its own bulk of a.cobsl, dextrin be- 
comes evident, being precipitated as a whitc puwder. 
Furthermore, if we mix 2—83 parts of starch with one 
of malt, we find that the whole undergoes the same change. 
An additional quantity of starch remains unaltered. 
The process of germination thus developes in the seed 
an agency by which the conversion of starch into soluble 
carbohydrates is accomplished with great rapidity. 
Diastase.—Payen & Persoz attribute this action to a 
nitrogenous substance which they term Déiastase, and 
which is found in the germinating seed in the vicinity of 
the embryo, but not in the radicles. They assert that one 
part of diastase is capable of transforming 2,0V0 parts of 
starch, first into dextrin and finally into sugar, and that 
malt yields ;};th of its weight of this substance. 
A short time previous to the investigations of Payen & 
Persoz (1833,) Saussure found that Mucidin,* the soluble 
nitrogenous body which may be extracted from gluten 
(p. 101,) transforms starch in the manner above described, 
and it is now known that any albuminoid may produce 
the same effect, although the rapidity of the action and 
the amount of effect are usually far less than that exhibit- 
ed by the so-called diastase. 
In order, however, that the albuminoids may transform 
starch as above described, it is doubtless necessary that 
they themselves enter into a state of alteration; they are 
in part decomposed and disappear in the process, 
These bodies thus altered become ferments. 
It must not be forgotten, however, that in all cases in 
which the conversion of starch into dextrin and sugar is 
accomplished artificially, an elevated temperature is re- 
quired, whereas in the natural process, as shown in the 
* Saussure designated this body mucin, but this term being established as the 
name of the characteristic ingredient of animal mucus, Ritthausen bas replaced 
it by mucidin. 
14* 
