CHAP, vi The Metabolic Processes 395 



ably extended our knowledge . He examined very thoroughly 

 the seeds of a large number of plants selected from a con- 

 siderable number of the Natural Orders of the vegetable 

 kingdom ; his methods were partly micro-chemical, but he 

 also prepared large quantities of many of the proteins and 

 separated them from one another much more completely 

 than had been done previously. While agreeing to a con- 

 siderable extent with Hoppe Seyler and Weyl, he showed 

 for the first time that in addition to globulins the aleurone 

 grain contains in many cases members of the group known 

 as albumoses, which are soluble in water, but the solution 

 does not coagulate on boiling. In the seed of Sparganium 

 racemosum Vines found a protein soluble only in dilute 

 acids or alkalies, apparently referable to the class known 

 at the time as derived albumins. Martin found globulin 

 and albumose to be associated in the seeds of Abrus 

 precatorius in 1887. 



Much more thorough investigations into the proteins 

 of seeds were made during the last ten years of the 

 century in America, first by Chittenden and Osborne, and 

 later by the latter in collaboration with several of his 

 pupils. They showed that the greater number of the 

 proteins of seeds belong to the class of globulins, though 

 albumoses, or preferably proteoses, occur in sensible quan- 

 tities. In some seeds derived albumins or albuminates 

 exist, but only in small amounts. Albumin is not of 

 frequent occurrence, but a form of it is met with in the 

 cereal grasses. 



From these researches it appears that the distinction 

 made by Weyl of myosins and vitellins is not exact, de- 

 pending upon variation of treatment before and during 

 extraction. These authors showed further that by appro- 

 priate methods vegetable globulin can be made to separate 

 in crystalline form. Crystalline bodies were prepared by 

 Maschke (1859), Schmiedeberg (1877), and Drechsel (1879), 



