200 CHEMISTRY OF THE PROTEIDS CHAP. 



albumin, which has been dried at 100"; and Neuberg found that 

 1 per cent H 9 S0 4 , after having acted for a twelvemonth on gelatine, 

 had given rise to no mono-amino-acids. Lawrow, 1 however, has found 

 3'7 to 5 per cent gelatine to be markedly affected by 0'5 per cent 

 HC1 if kept at 37-38, there being always an excess of chloroform. 

 After 60 days the rotary power of gelatine had been diminished to 

 the extent of 23 per cent, and nitrogenous radicals had been split off 

 which could not be precipitated by phospho-tungstic acid, and which, 

 therefore, were probably mono-amino-acids. Twice crystallised haemo- 

 globin treated similarly with 0'5 per cent HC1 gave, after 161 days, 

 over 30 per cent mono-amino nitrogen, Kuhne's amphopeptone and 

 nitrogenous products, probably mono-amino-acids, which could not be 

 precipitated by phospho-tungstic acid. 



In considering the primary and secondary effects produced by the 

 action of acids on albumins the same unsolved question arises as when 

 studying the action of ferments, namely : Do albumoses and peptones 

 represent smaller complexes, split off from the unchanged acid-albumin, 

 or does the albumin-molecule, as a whole, change into acid-albumin, and 

 then into albumoses, but with different rapidities ? The results of 

 Goto 2 seem to show that the albumin, as a whole, is first divided into 

 large complexes of the same size, and that therefore the second of the 

 two conjectures is the right one. 



Kyrins 



By acting with 12*5 per cent hydrochloric acid on gelatine at 38, 

 Siegfried 3 prepared " gluto-kyrin," the first known crystalline peptone. 

 It is a base having the composition 



C 21 H 39 N 9 8 . 



The only difficulty with this formula is that Siegfried 4 obtained in 

 recent experiments much less glutaminic acid than corresponds to one 

 molecule of glutaminic acid to one molecule of kyrin. This discrepancy 

 he explains as due to dissociation taking place in different ways, 

 or due to the formation of secondary products such as pyrrolidin- 

 carboxylic acid, or due to the formation of compounds or intermediate 

 products containing the glutaminic acid radical. 0. Pilz is engaged in 

 Siegfried's laboratory in elucidating this question. 



Of its salts, the chloride, the sulphate, which is almost insoluble in 

 alcohol, the phosphotungstate, which crystallises, and the /3-naphthalin 



1 D. Lawrow, Zeitschr. f. physiol. Chew. 44. 447 (1905). 



2 M. Goto, ibid. 37- 94 (1903). 



3 M. Siegfried, Ber. d. sacks. Oe-s. d. Wissensch. zu Leipzig, math.-phys. Rl., 1903, 

 p. 63. 4 M. Siegfried, Zeitschr. f. physiol. Ohem. 43. 44 (1904). 



