46 Chittenden and Cummins—Amylolytice Action 
teid matter present and doubtless also in part to increase or decrease 
in the amount of ferment. 
It became necessary, therefore, at first, to ascertain something re- 
garding the relative amylolytic action of the malt extract, which 
contains some proteid matter. Three quantities of malt extract 
were employed, which by thirty minutes warming at 40° C. with 
1 gram of starch in the manner already described, gave the follow- 
ing results : 
Total amount 
Malt extract. Wt. Cuin 4. reducing bodies. Starch converted. 
10 c. ¢. 071192 gram. 0°2428 gram. 21°85 per cent. 
15 0°1489 0°3038 27°34 
25 071543 0°3150 28°35 
It is interesting to note here that, as in the case of the amylolytic 
ferment of saliva,:there is no quantitative relation between the 
amount of ferment and the extent of amylolytic action ; it is only 
when the ferment solution is greatly diluted that amylolytic action 
can be taken as a definite measure of the amount of ferment 
present. Kjeldahl* has likewise studied the influence of the quantity 
of diastase upon the amount of sugar formed under given conditions 
and he came to the conclusion that the formation of sugar was pro- 
portional to the amount of ferment only up to a certain point ; be- 
yond which, increase in the amount of ferment was not accompanied 
by proportional increase in the formation of sugar. 
Preliminary experiments showed us that the ferment of malt is 
very susceptible to the action of sodium carbonate; the addition of 
even 0:025 gram of the alkaline carbonate to 15 c. ¢. of perfectly 
neutral malt extract, with subsequent dilution to 100 c. c. allowed no 
diastatic action whatever. Following are two series of experiments 
illustrating the action of different percentages of sodium carbonatef 
on the ferment under different degrees of dilution. 
a. with 15 c¢. ec. of the standard malt extract. 
Total amount 
Na2Cos. Wt. Cuin 4. reducing bodies. Starch converted. 
0 0°1371 gram. 0°2794 gram. 25.14 per cent. * 
0:0005 per cent. 0°1318 0°2684 24°15 
0°0010 071274 0°2596 23.36 
0-0020 00544 0°1124 10°11 
0°0050 0°0197 0°0434. 3°90 
0-0080 0°0134 0-0312 2°80 
0°0100 0°0135 00314 2°82 
0°0125 0°0065 0:0148 1:33 
0°0250 0 
* Jahresbericht fiir Thierchemie, 1879, 381. 
+ The standard solutions of sodium carbonate employed in these experiments were 
made from the chemically pure anhydrous salt. 
