New York Agricultural Experiment Station, 185 



It may be thought that our results fail to agree with those of 

 Lawrow, cited above, in which he succeeded by an auto-digestion 

 of a stomach in obtaining putrescine and cadaverine, probably 

 with formation of carbon dioxide. It must be kept in mind, 

 however, that in his work the conditions were favorable to a 

 much more intense reaction, because he not only had a highly 

 concentrated pepsin solution but he also kept the acid content 

 of his digesting solution high, conditions that are not present 

 in cheddar cheese. 



It may be thought, again, that the activity of the enzymes, 

 galactase and rennet-pepsin, in our one cheese was checked 

 by the chloroform and that we should, under the circumstances, 

 expect just the results we obtained. In Bulletin No. 203 

 of this Station, we have furnished evidence showing that 

 chloroform does not inhibit the activity of galactase; and we shall 

 later publish results, secured in co-operation with the bacterio- 

 logical department, confirming our previous work. Lawrow's 

 work showed that chloroform did not inhibit the activity of a 

 concentrated pepsin solution. In view of the evidence at hand, 

 it appears to us quite improbable that, if chloroform has any 

 inhibiting influence on galactase and rennet-pepsin, we should 

 find these two enzymes, under the conditions of the experiment, 

 able to furnish such end-products as arginine, lysine and tyrosine, 

 but unable to produce compounds resulting from further proteo- 

 lysis such as putrescine, guanidine and ammonia. If chloro- 

 form interfered with the work of these enzymes, we should expect 

 either that there would be no proteolysis or that we should find 

 the same compounds that are formed in the absence of chloro- 

 form but in much smaller quantities. As a matter of fact, we 

 find these enzymes quite as active in the chloroformed cheese as 

 in the normal cheese in forming certain compounds but they stop 

 short in their work, appearing unable to produce the further 

 cleavage that results in the production of carbon dioxide. This 

 failure to furnish products beyond a certain point seems to us to 

 depend upon other conditions than the presence of chloroform. 



The only logical conclusion suggested by the results of our 

 work appears to us to be that the enzymes, galactase and pepsin 

 are able to furnish such end-products as arginine, lysine and 



