ARTICLE X. 
On the Azotized Nutritive Principles of Plants. By Professor 
Lizsie*, 
[From the Annalen der Chemie und Pharmacie, August, 1841.] 
THE vegetable kingdom contains many azotized compounds 
of various characters, existing as component parts of plants. 
Many of these compounds are peculiar to certain genera of 
plants; some are found in species only, and not in every indivi- 
dual species of the same family; others in two or more species 
of different families. They are in general remarkable for their 
peculiar action on the animal organization ; this action is poison- 
ous, or, what is commonly called medicinal; but they are found 
only in minute quantity in the fruit, leaves, or roots of the plants 
in which they exist. All organic bases, such as caffein, aspara- 
gin, and piperin, belong to this class of bodies. They appear 
to be incapable of replacing the loss of matter sustained in ani- 
mals by the action of the vital process, or of increasing in a per- 
ceptible degree the size of any organ; partly for this reason, 
and partly because those matters which serve as nourishment 
are wanting in them, and they are eaten in very small quantities 
only, they cannot be considered as nutriment. 
But there is another class of azotized compounds most exten- 
sively diffused, although their number is small; one of these 
three or four substances appears in all plants without exception, 
the other three are found only as ingredients in certain families. 
These three substances, namely vegetable albumen, gluten, and 
legumin, are, properly speaking, the azotized nutritive principles 
of plants. 
Vegetable albumen, which is distinguished by its solubility in 
water, is found in the juices of plants, but chiefly in oleaginous seeds. 
Gluten is one of the chief ingredients of the seeds of the ce- 
reals; legumin is found in leguminous plants, chiefly in beans, 
peas, and lentils. These, with another substance, which I shall call 
vegetable fibrin, form the proper nutriment of graminivorous 
animals, from which their blood is produced, and from which all 
* Translated by Robert Smith, Ph. D. 
