Nitrogen- free Extract — Carbohydrates 87 



that a ferment present in the seed, called diastase, 

 acts upon the starch and converts it into maltose, a 

 sugar. The brewer takes advantage of this fact when 

 he malts or germinates barley, this being nothing more 

 than the same change of starch into sugar, which oc- 

 curs during germination in the ground. This maltose 

 is utilized by the young plant to form new tissue and 

 by the brewer as a source of alcohol. In the animal 

 body, especially in the mouth and intestines, are found 

 ferments which accomplish essentially the same result. 

 Through their diastatic influence the starch, dextrose, 

 cane sugar and other carbohydrates are transformed, 

 probably by successive stages, finally into glucose (dex- 

 trose mainly) in which form the carbohydrate nutri- 

 ents enter the blood. 



The chemical changes so far noted are all in one 

 direction, i. e., the taking up of the elements of water 

 to form new compounds, as, for instance, the trans- 

 formation of starch to dextrose or cane sugar into in- 

 vert sugar. 



Up to the present time, however, no chemist has 

 discovered a way of reversing this process, and by ab- 

 stracting the elements of water from the glucoses pro- 

 ducing cellulose, starch and cane sugar. That the plant 

 can do this, however, is certainly true. Cell walls and 

 starch grains are undoubtedly made from the sugars 

 under the influerice of what we blindly call vital force. 



The carbohydrates, especially the sugars, possess 

 such chemical properties as cause them to be easily de- 

 stroyed and lost from the feeding stuff in which they 

 are contained. If grass or corn fodder is allowed to lie 



