THE PROTEOSES 51 



claim of Pick and Spiro and demonstrated that 

 the proteoses are in and of themselves poison- 

 ous, when administered intravenously. He pre- 

 pared the poison from pure proteins by cleav- 

 age with acids and showed that native proteo- 

 ses found in seeds and nuts, wheat embryo, 

 hemp seed and Brazil nuts, when introduced 

 into animals intravenously induce all the symp- 

 toms formerly known as those of peptone poi- 

 soning. 



Popielski has worked with a body which he 

 extracts from commercial peptone with alco- 

 hol. This "vasodilatin," as he calls it, has the 

 same action that was formerly attributed to 

 peptone and notwithstanding its solubility in al- 

 cohol it gives the protein color tests, at least 

 the biuret and the Millon. 



It must be evident that the behavior of my 

 protein poison both chemically and physiolog- 

 ically, closely resembles that of the proteoses. 

 Some proteoses, at least, are soluble in alcohol, 

 and as has been said, Popielski extracts his 

 body from commercial peptones with alcohol. 

 The protein poison, though soluble in absolute 

 alcohol, gives the protein reactions and is a 

 biuret body; some proteoses behave in a simi- 

 lar manner. Edmunds has shown that the pro- 

 tein poison lowers blood pressure in dogs, just 



