l86 LIFE AND DEATH. 



of albumin of compounds of the fatty series. There 

 is also an aromatic group — a pyridine group — and a 

 group belonging to the category of sugars. Imagine 

 a certain grouping of these four series. This would 

 be the nucleus of the molecule of albumin. If we 

 graft on to this nucleus, on to this framework as it 

 were, so many annexes, or lateral chains, the building 

 will be loaded with embellishments ; it will have 

 been made unstable and ipso facto appropriate for the 

 part that it plays in the incessant transformations 

 of the organism. 



KosseVs Analysis. Hexonic Nucleus. — Kossel has 

 approached the problem in another fashion. He 

 did not attempt to attack the albumin of the ^^'g. 

 This body is, in fact, a heterogeneous mixture as 

 complex as the needs of the embryo of which it forms 

 the food. Kossel tried a physiologically simpler 

 albuminoid. He got it from an anatomical element 

 having no nutritive role, of a very elementary 

 organization and physiological functional activity, 

 and yet one of energetic vitality — the male generating 

 cell. Instead of the hen's ^go he therefore analyzed 

 the milt of fish, and, in the first place, of salmon. As 

 was to be expected from what has been said of the 

 proteids, this living matter gives a combination of 

 the nuclein, already known, with an albumin. The 

 latter is abundant, forming a quarter of the total 

 mass. Its reaction is strongly alkaline, which is the 

 general characteristic of the variety of albumin known 

 by the name of histones. Miescher, the learned 

 chemist of Basle, who had noticed this basic albumin 

 when working on the Rhine salmon, gave it the name 

 of protamin. This is the substance submitted by 

 Kossel to analysis in preference to the albumin of 



