BACTERIAL PROTEINS 23 



that these are highly complex in chemical struc- 

 ture. He states that he was not able to extract 

 protein from the cell substance with water, salt 

 solution, or one per cent sulphuric acid, and 

 that even with alkali a portion of the cell sub- 

 stance remained undis solved. Surely this 

 would not be true if the cell substance consisted 

 of simple proteins. He also obtained the nu- 

 clein bases, diamino and mono-amino-acids. Of 

 the last mentioned his list for the tubercle ba- 

 cillus contains one (prolin) not found in ours, 

 while ours contains two (glutamic acid and leu- 

 cin) not found in his. Neither found glycocoll 

 in the tubercle bacillus while we found it in the 

 colon bacillus. 



Tamura concludes, as we had done some 

 years before, that bacterial cellular substance 

 contains two carbohydrate groups, but the one 

 which we have designated as chitin-like body, he 

 classifies as a hemicellulose. This name was 

 proposed by Schultze, after an investigation of 

 various cell membranes, to include a group of 

 bodies, " which are wholly soluble on being 

 heated with dilute alkalis. In the cold, five per 

 cent sodium hydroxide dissolves them some- 

 what more slowly." And yet Tamura classes 

 as a hemicellulose a body which remains in the 

 residue after repeated extraction with one per 



