BACTERIAL CELLULAR SUBSTANCE 57 



any other known nucleic acid. De Schweinitz 1 thought 

 that a nucleo-albumin is the fever-producing agent in the 

 tubercle bacillus. Maragliano 2 made an aqueous extract 

 of the tubercle bacillus by digesting it on the water-bath 

 and obtained a poisonous substance. This comes from the 

 autolytic cleavage of the bacillus. 



Carbohydrates. One of the earliest studies of the chemistry 

 of bacteria was made by Scheibler 3 upon leuconostoc mesen- 

 teroides. The viscous growth of this germ in beet juice, 

 after extraction with alcohol was boiled with milk of lime. 

 The filtrate furnished a gum which was regarded as an 

 anhydride of dextrose, since by slow hydrolysis it is con- 

 verted into the latter. This substance, to which the name 

 of dextran was given, is a white, amorphous powder, soluble 

 in water and dextrorotatory, having three times the rotary 

 power of cane sugar. Scheibler stated that this germ con- 

 tains ash, fat, water, dextra, and a substance containing 

 nitrogen, believed to be protagon or some closely related 

 body. Kramer 4 separated from the slime of bacillus viscosus 

 sacchari two modifications of a carbohydrate of the formula 

 QHioO.5. Both were optically active, and on being boiled 

 with acid reduced Fehling's solution. Ward and Green 5 

 found that a species of bacterium from Madagascar sugar- 

 cane secretes invertose. In sugar solutions it produces 

 a viscous growth that gives an opalescent solution in water, 

 which, when treated with alcohol, yields a bulky flocculent 

 precipitate, found to contain two carbohydrates, one of 

 which gives an osazone, and is optically active, while the 

 other is inactive. They regard these bodies as related to, 

 but not identical with, Scheibler's dextran, and are not 

 certain whether they are products of the vital processes 

 of the organism or are cleavage products. Vincenzi 6 could 



1 Bulletin No. 7, Bureau of Animal Industry; Jour. Amer. Chem. Society, 

 1897, xix, 782. 



2 Berl. klin. Woch., 1899, xxxvi, 385. 



3 Zeitsch. f. Rubenzuckerindustrie, 1874, xxiv, 309. 



4 Monats. f. Chem., 1889, x, 467. 



5 Proc. Roy. Soc., 1899, Ixv, 65. 



6 Zeitsch. f. physiol. Chem., 1887, ix, 181. 



