236 FORMATION OF SUGAR FROM PROTEIN 



This ended the first act of this eventful scientific drama. 

 All the more honor to the investigator to whom had fallen 

 the role of the " spirit that would not down," that at the 

 close of his arduous life he, as it were, went over to the 

 enemies ' camp ; this he did as soon as he was persuaded that 

 there was where the truth lay. May the coming generations 

 forget the acerbities and the many unfriendly words, but not 

 forget that even this controversy was not entirely without 

 value and that Eduard Pfliiger is to be honored for what he 

 stood in science, a true seeker after the truth. 



Respiration Experiments. The formation of sugar from 

 protein has also been determined, aside from the method of 

 feeding experiments, in another way, by respiration experi- 

 ments. It has been proved that if abundant protein be fed 

 after a previous period of starvation practically all of the 

 nitrogen of the protein employed will appear in the excreta, 

 but a portion of the carbon will remain in the body. ' l Here 

 the only alternative, ' ' says Max Cremer, ' ' unless one is will- 

 ing to take refuge in unknown and hitherto unproven modes 

 of retention, is to think of this carbon as contributing to 

 form either glycogen or fat. To anyone who like myself 

 holds the formation of fat in a strictly synthetic production 

 only as succeeding a prior stage of glucose these experi- 

 ments are thoroughly conclusive of the new formation of 

 glucose." 



New- Formation of Carbohydrate in Glycogen-free Tis- 

 sues. Even the man who is dissatisfied with such observa- 

 tions cannot gainsay the fact of the new formation of glyco- 

 gen in the starving animal. Babbits can be made entirely 

 devoid of glycogen by being starved for a number of days and 

 then subjected to strychnine convulsions. If >such glycogen- 

 free animals are allowed to starve further and are killed at 

 the first sign of the premortal increase of nitrogen elimina- 

 tion (indicative of the complete consumption of the supply of 

 reserve material and that thereafter the protein constituents 

 of the tissues are of necessity being drawn upon), they will 



