CHEMICAL COMPOSITION OF FOOD-F1SIIES. 
757 
larger than the actual amount of protein compounds, is too evident to 
require argument. He adduces, however, figures from Payen’s and 
Pettenkofer and Voit’s analyses, as well as his own, from which he com- 
putes that in the water-free substance of lean beef the actual amounts 
of protein compounds could hardly be more than 77 percent., while the 
ordinary computation would make them as high as 88 to 92 per cent. 
In view of the labor involved in direct determinations of the actual 
amount of protein compounds, exclusive of extractive matters, Alm6n 
has attempted to find what proportion of the nitrogen actually belongs 
to these compounds, or, to speak more properly, by what factor the total 
nitrogen should be multiplied in order to yield figures corresponding 
with the actual amounts of protein compounds. For this purpose he 
takes the sums of the soluble albumen, the gelatinoids, and the other 
protein compounds in eight different specimens of flesh of fish and one 
of beef (which numbers are found in the line designated by (d) in Part 
A of Table 15), and adding them together finds their sum to be 138.29 
per cent. The sum of the corresponding percentages of nitrogen, line 
(A;) in the same table, is 25.914 per cent. Dividing the former of these 
two sums by the latter he obtains the quotient 5.34, which he desig- 
nates as the coefficient by which the percentage of nitrogen in the flesh 
should be multiplied in order to give the actual amount of protein com- 
pounds in the flesh. He then assumes that the multiplication of the 
percentage of nitrogen in any one of the specimens of fish analyzed, 
fresh, salt, or dried, will give the actual amount of protein. These 
calculated amounts he gives in line ( e ) of his table. The amounts of 
protein as directly determined then compare with the amounts thus 
calculated, as shown in Table 16. 
Table 16 . — Comparison between percentages of protein compounds as directly determined 
and as computed by multiplying the total nitrogen by 5.34. 
Fresh fish and lean beef. 
Dried and salted fish. 
In flesh of— 
Protein compounds. 
In flesh of— 
Protein compounds. 
Directly 
deter-' 
mined. 
Computed 
from 
nitrogen. 
Directly 
deter- 
mined. 
Computed 
from 
nitrogen. 
Eel 
Per cent. 
11.64 
15. 59 
15. 91 
16. 93 
17. 20 
16. 36 
13. 80 
12. 98 
17.88 
Per cent. 
11.24 
17.22 
16. 57 
16.09 
17. OS ' 
15.48 
14. 28 
12. 66 
17. 77 
Salted herring 
Per cent. 
14. 95 
18. 46 
19. 24 
23. 73 
16. 58 
71. 72 
64. 41 
54. 18 
Per cent. 
15. 62 
17. 79 
19. 12 
24.43 
16. 55 
68. 30 
65. 00 
50.51 
Mackerel 
Salmon 
Little herring 
Plaice 
Perch 
Cod 
Pike 
Salted mackerel 
Salted salmon 
Salted ling 
Salted little herring 
Dried pollock 
Dried cod (powdered) 
Dried ling 
Lean beef 
It will be borne in mind that the direct determination of protein was 
more properly a determination by difference, since it was made by sub- 
tracting the sum of the extractive matters, fat, and ash from the total 
water-free substance. Any errors, therefore, which might have occurred 
in the determinations of either ash, fat, or albumen would enter into this 
