254 DRECHSEL'S DISCOVERY OF LYSINE AND LYSATININE. [BOOK n. 



SECT. 11. BASES RESULTING FROM THE DECOMPOSITION OF 

 ALBUMINOUS SUBSTANCES BY TRYPSIN. 



(Lysine, Lysatine or Lysatinine and Ammonia.) 



1. Lysine C 6 H U N 2 O 2 . 



Historical Commenting upon the results which had been ob- 



introduction. tained by Hlasiwetz and Habermann, on the one hand, 

 by the action of stannous chloride and hydrochloric acid on the albu- 

 minous substances, and by Schiitzenberger, on the other, who effected 

 the decomposition of the same bodies by Ba(OH) 2 , Drechsel argued 

 that both processes had this in common, that they led to the produc- 

 tion of amido-acids and of ammonia, whilst they differed materially 

 in that, under the influence of caustic baryta, carbonic, oxalic, and 

 acetic acids were formed, whereas these bodies did not occur when 

 stannous chloride and hydrochloric acid effected the decomposition 1 . 



Hlasiwetz and Habermann had by their method obtained leucine, 

 tyrosine, glutamic acid and ammonia, as products of the decompo- 

 sition of casein, and, in addition, a small quantity of mother liquor, 

 from which no other crystalline bodies separated. Horbaczewski by 

 the same method had, by the decomposition of horn, obtained 16 to 

 18 per cent, of the HC1 compound of glutamic acid, three to five 

 per cent of tyrosine, 15 per cent, of leucine and very small quanti- 

 ties of aspartic acid. If we assume, argued Drechsel 2 , that in these 

 researches only one-half of the substances actually obtained could be 

 separated in a crystalline form, even then about 30 per cent, of the 

 original albuminous, or albuminoid, matter acted upon would be left 

 unaccounted for, and this deficit far exceeds the amount which could 

 be covered by the ammonia formed in the reaction : seeing that all 

 the products of decomposition contained nitrogen, and the amount 

 of this element in a proteid only amounts to 16 or 17 per cent. 



Reasoning in this manner, Drechsel commenced an investigation 

 of which the object was to discover some, at least, of the products 

 resulting from the splitting-up of the albuminous molecule which 

 had escaped previous observers, and, in the first instance, he directed 

 his attention to bases which might presumably be present in the 

 mother liquors of the hydrochloric acid and stannous chloride process. 

 The investigations which he was led to conduct in person 3 and 



1 Drechsel in the article ' Eiweisskorper ' in Ladenburg's Handworterbuch der 

 Chemie, Vol. in. p. 548. 



2 Drechsel, ' Der Abbau der Eiweissstoffe.' Du Bois' Archiv, 1891, see p. 254, ' Zur 

 Kenntniss der Spaltungsproducte des Caseins.' 



3 E. Drechsel, " Ueber ein Spaltungsproduct des Caseins," Ber. d. K. Sachs. 

 Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften. Sitz am 1 Aug. 1870. " Zur Kenntniss der Spaltungs- 

 producte des Caseins," Du Bois' Archiv, 1891, pp. 254 260. ' Ueber die Bildung von 

 Harnstoff aus Eiweiss,' Ibid. pp. 261 265, and Ber. d. deutsch. chem. Gesellsch. Vol. 

 xxiii. , p. 3096. 



