SECTION I. 



THE CHEMICAL COMPOSITION OF THE PROTEIN MOLECULE. 



THE methods which have been employed for the purpose of de- 

 termining the composition of the protein molecule have been many 

 and various. They may be classified under four headings : 



(1) Fusion with alkali. 



(2) Oxidation with permanganate, chromic acid, etc. 



(3) Action of halogens. 



(4) Hydrolysis. 



Of these, the last, that of hydrolysis, has thrown most light on the 

 darkness of this complex problem. Hydrolysis has been effected by 

 the action of acids, of alkalies and of the various proteoclastic enzymes 

 which occur in plants and animals, and is practically the only method 

 by which we have attained to our present knowledge. Proteins were 

 first hydrolysed by acids in 1820 by Braconnot, who used dilute sul- 

 phuric acid ; between 1850 and 1875 hydrochloric acid was most fre- 

 quently employed as the hydrolysing agent by Ritthausen, Hlasiwetz 

 and Habermann and others, and from 1870 to 1880 Schutzenberger 

 employed baryta water under pressure. The action of vegetable enzymes 

 on proteins has been studied chiefly by Schulze and his co-workers, 

 that of animal enzymes by Kuhne, Kossel, Kutscher, Drechsel and 

 numerous other investigators. 



As the result of hydrolysis a complex mixture of all, or nearly all, 

 the previously mentioned units is obtained. These have been isolated 

 by various methods based upon the fractional crystallisation of the 

 compounds themselves, or of their copper, silver and other salts. Only 

 when one or more of the amino acids occurred in somewhat large 

 amounts was their isolation and characterisation effected ; their amount 

 seldom reached a value higher than 20 per cent, of the total quan- 

 tity and the remainder was represented by uncrystallisable syrups of 

 unknown nature. A great advance was made when Drechsel discovered 

 that the protein molecule contained diamino acids as well as monoamino 

 acids, and to Kossel and Kutscher we owe our chief knowledge con- 

 cerning their isolation and estimation. Emil Fischer, in 1901, by his 



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