Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles, 139 



In concluding this compendious sketch, I consider it a duty to 

 express my deep gratitude to MM. P. Desains and J. Jansen, who 

 have promoted and encouraged my researches ; and I must also 

 record the obliging cooperation of the house of Carpentier, and in 

 particular of M. G-uerout, who has directed, with much care and 

 kindness, the construction of my apparatus. — Comptes Bendus de 

 VAcademie des Sciences, June 26, 1880, t. xc. p. 1534. 



ON A DIGESTIVE FERMENT CONTAINED IN THE JUICE OF THE 

 FIG-TREE. BY M. BOUCHUT. 



The researches which I and M. Ad. "Wurtz presented to the Aca- 

 demy, on the digestive action of the juice of Carica papaya, and 

 of the digestive ferment (papai'ne) which it contains, have induced 

 me to see if that was not a fact connected with a general carnivorous 

 property of the latex of many other plants. Special studies, care- 

 fully made, in that direction compel me to think so ; and now, 

 at least, the thing seems demonstrated by the milky juice of the 

 common fig-tree. 



This juice is not very copious, its collection slow and difficult ; 

 no one has any great quantity of it. Nevertheless I obtained from 

 Provence a remittance of the latex collected in the month of April 

 — which it is important to remember, as the quality of the juice 

 changes with the more or less advanced state of the vegetation ; 

 and in the laboratory of M. Wurtz we made some experiments, 

 which have given the following results : — 



Five grams of the milky juice, in part coagulated — forming a 

 serous portion, and a white, glutinous, elastic, and perfumed resi- 

 nous coagulum — were kept, in a glass with 60 grams of distilled 

 water and 10 grams of moist fibrine, at a constant temperature 

 of 50° C. After some hours the fibrine was attacked, softened ; 

 and in the evening it was digested, leaving a little white residue at 

 the bottom of the glass. 



I added successively, in the same glass and the same liquid : — 

 first, 10 grams of moist fibrine, which were digested in twelve hours ; 

 next, 12 grams, and then 15, and that eight times at intervals of 

 one or two days, always taking care to keep the vessel at the 

 same temperature. These different additions amounted to no less 

 than 90 grams of fibrine for one month of experiment. 



Each quantity of fibrine was digested in less than twenty-four 

 hours, and left a homogeneous whitish residue, which was added to 

 that of the preceding digestion. The solution had a pronounced 

 odour of good broth, without the slightest putridity and with a 

 pleasant smell, due to the resinous coagulum of the fig-tree juice left 

 designedly in the glass. 



At the end of a month we discontinued the experiment. The 

 fibrine digestions had not fermented ; they retained a savoury smell 

 of digested meat, plus the aroma of the fig-tree resin. Other 

 similar experiments have yielded the same results. They prove 



