DIGESTION OF THE ALBUMINS. 177 



constitute the greater portion of the antipeptone and of the nature 

 of which nothing is as yet known, can serve as food-stuffs in the 

 narrower sense of the term, remains to be seen. Under such con- 

 ditions it is perhaps wiser to conclude that the deutero-albumoses 

 represent those products of tryptic digestion which actually play 

 a role in the process of nutrition, and to suppose that a formation 

 of antipeptone is essentially a process which takes place in vitro, 

 and normally occurs only to a slight extent in the living organism. 

 This, however, is a mere assumption and lacks experimental proof. 



In the account of the process of albuminous digestion, as out- 

 lined in the foregoing pages, it has in a manner been assumed that the 

 digestive products which are thus formed are identical, irrespective 

 of their origin. Strictly speaking, this is not the case, however, as we 

 know as a matter of fact that the distribution of the nitrogen in the 

 original albuminous molecule differs in the different albumins. The 

 amount of hexon bases, moreover, which may be obtained from the 

 various albumins is not constant, and we have reason to think that 

 the number of carbohydrate groups also is more or less variable. 

 Such differences, it is true, have thus far been mainly established 

 for the original substances, but it is, of course, manifest that the 

 corresponding products of digestion cannot be the same. With the 

 usual analytical methods, however, these differences are scarcely 

 apparent, and ammonium sulphate, which is now so extensively uti- 

 lized in separating the various albumins from each other, apparently 

 acts in the same manner with these products, no matter what their 

 origin may have been. In the accompanying tables I have collected 

 various data from the literature to show the difference in the distribu- 

 tion of the nitrogen and the corresponding amount of arginin which 

 can be obtained from some of the more important albumins.' 



Amido- Diamino- Monamino- 

 nitrogen. nitrogen, nitrogen. 



Crystallized egg-albumin (Hausmann) ..... 8.53 21.33 67.80 



Crystallized serum-albumin (Hausmann) .... 6.34 



Serum-globulin (Hausmann) 8.90 24.95 68.28 



Casein (Hausmann) 13.38 11.71 75.98 



Gelatin (Hausmann) 1.61 35.83 62.56 



Proto-albumose of fibrin (Pick) 7.14 25.42 68.17 



Hetero-albumose of fibrin (Pick) 6.45 38.93 57.40 



Arginin. 



Keratin 2.25 per cent. 



Glutin 2.6 " " 



Conglutin 2.75 " " 



Albumin (yolk) 2.3 " " 



Albumin (white of egg) 0.8 " " 



Dried blood-serum 0.7 " " 



Casein 0.25 " " 



To distinguish the different albumoses which are derived from 

 the true albumins, including those which result on the decomposition 

 of the proteids from the albuminoid albumoses, Chittenden has in- 

 12 



