.rANlAKY 1, l'J15 



33 



ORIGIN OF ALBUMEN IN HONEY 



Based on a lecture by Dr. Langer-Oraz 



BY J. A. HEBERLE^ B. S. 



About 17 years ago, French and German 

 scientists, by experiment and extensive stud- 

 scientists, by experiment and extensive 

 studies, worked out a method of diflferen- 

 dilTerent orii>ins. In order to understand 

 clearly what follows, it is necessary to 

 describe brielly some of the methods. 



If into an animal a dilute solution of 

 albumen, for instance from a hen's egg, be 

 injected a few times, the blood of this ani- 

 mal undergoes a very subtle change. If 

 blood from this animal is taken, and, after 

 coagulating, the thick part separates, there 

 remains an almost clear solution called 

 serum. Through the injection the serum 

 has acquired the peculiar property of giving 

 a pi'ccipitate with a dilute solution from 

 the albumen of a hen's Qgg, but not with 

 albumen from other sources. It may be 

 mentioned that the serum obtained in the 

 above-mentioned case will not act uniform- 

 ly with Q^g albumen from various birds. 

 With some Q^g albumen it will fail to give 

 a precipitate if tlie dilution is 1 to 100, 1 to 

 200. or 1 to 1000; while with the albumen 

 of tlie same source that has been used for 

 injection it will aive a distinct precipitate 

 if'the dilution is 1 to 10,000, 1 to 50,000, or 

 even greater. The nearer related the birds 

 are to the one from which the egg albumen 

 was used for injection the more dilute may 

 be the solution of the Qgg albumen and still 

 give a precipitate. This biological method 

 furnishes the only means to decide the deri- 

 vation of albuminous bodies, and is used in 

 food analysis and by court chemists. By 

 this method blood spots, even if old and 

 dried up, can be positively identified, wheth- 

 er from the human body or lower animals. 



Prof. Langer began to use the biological 

 method for the critical examination of hon- 

 ey in 1002. At the same time, and inde- 

 pendently of him, von Riegler, of Budapest, 

 worked on the same problem. Prof. Langer 

 used albumen derived from honey, while 

 Riegler used a dilute solution of honey for 

 injection. The obtained serums gave pre- 

 fipitates with dilute solutions of honey. 

 The results of several years of study and 

 experiments were published in the Archives 

 of Hygiene. 1909. Prof. Langer lias deter- 

 mined that the albumen in honey is derived 

 from the bees. Animals that have been 

 treated with albumen derived from honey 

 furnish a serum that gave a precipitate, not 

 only with honey albumen, but also with 

 watery extracts from the heads of bees, 

 the larva* of hoes, of bce-hread. and with 

 diluted r-liyle. Animals lieated (injected) 



with watery extracts of the heads of bees 

 furnished a serum which gave a precipitate 

 with honey albumen. These reciprocal reac- 

 tions pointed to the presence of a uniform 

 albumen in honey, the heads of worker bees, 

 larvas of bees, bee-bread, and in chyle. 



Prof. Langer's endeavor to prove the 

 presence of albumen of vegetable origin in 

 honey by the biological method was not 

 successful. He recommended a detailed 

 method for the quantitative determination of 

 albumen in honey, and asked that it be 

 thoroughly tested. Two scientists have re- 

 ported, and the results obtained agreed with 

 his. Especially valuable was the report of 

 Dr. Thoeny of the Swiss health office. 



Dr. Kuestenmacher, in 1910, gave it as 

 his opinion that the albumen in the honey 

 comes from pollen. According to his idea, 

 the albumen of the pollen is dissolved in the 

 pollen-stomach, and diffuses partly through 

 its walls, and so becomes chyle, and part of 

 it (the albumen of the pollen) gets into the 

 honey. The mistake of Prof. Langer, writes 

 Dr. Kuestenmacher (that the albumen in 

 bee-bread gets into it with the saliva of the 

 bees) I need not refute, because I have 

 shown elscAvhere the principal parts of 

 which pollen consists, exclusive of saliva. 



Prof. Langer was much interested, and 

 either wanted to prove the assertion of Dr. 

 Kuestenmacher (that the albumen in the 

 honey was derived from the pollen) or dis- 

 prove it. He gathered pollen himself from 

 the hazelbush, and made a watery extract 

 from the whole pollen as well as from 

 pollen after triturating it with fine sand. 

 With these dilute solutions rabbits were in- 

 jected, so he obtained a pure pollen (anti- 

 serum). This gave a pi'ecipitate with a 

 veiy dilute hazel-pollen extract with other 

 pollen extracts, only in more concentrated 

 solutions; but it gave no precipitate with 

 honey albumen. Dr. Kuestenmacher claims 

 that honey albumen is a pollen albumen. 

 If that were so, a serum obtained by injec- 

 tion with honey albumen would give a pre- 

 cipitate with pollen albumen ; but Prof. 

 Langer never succeeded in obtaining a pre- 

 cipitate under these conditions. 



According to the results of his extensive 

 experiments he concludes that the mistake 

 about the origin of albumen, at least of the 

 biologically tangible albumen in honey, is 

 on the side of Dr. Kuestenmacher. 



The experiments of Dr. Langer force one 

 lo the conclusion thai I he albumen in lioney 

 is derived fiom the bee. 



Kemjjten, Bavaria, Germany. 



