105 
powes ss on the remarkable properties of the plant, „A vast amount has - 
recently been written on the action of the “ “< vegetable pepsin ” contained 
in the juice that abounds in the unripe fru 
igestive action of the juice Ass meat was probably inasa 
in the West Indies at a very early date, and appears to have Þeen com- 
municated to the inhabitants of this country upon the M of 
the tree by the Por — as it has long been the custom ndia to 
render eus tender by rubbing it with the juice of ts: fruit or by 
wrapping it in the leaves, In the old “ History of Barbados” by 
Griffith igi the MO quaintly informs us that * this juice is of so 
penetrating a nature that if the unripe peeled fruit be boiled with the 
toughest old salted meat, it quickly makes it soft aud tender ; and if 
pigs be fed with the fruit, especially unripe, the thin mucous matter 
which coats the inside of tha intestine is attacked, and, if the food be 
nehanged, is completely destroyed." ‘The author of the Makhzan-el- 
adhoigas (1770) described the tree in his day, and mentions the use o 
the Liuen mixed with ginger, for making meat tender. 
n 1877, the milky juice of the Carica me to attract attention in 
epe as a dige ferment, and Herr Wittmack, of Berlin, in 1878 
made a careful pest of its properties and came to the following 
conclusions respecting it : 
(1) The milky juice of the Carica Papaya is (or contains) a ferment 
has an extraordinarily energetic action upon nitrogenous 
substances, and like pepsin curdles milk ; (2) this juice differs from 
pepsin in being active without the addition of. free acid, probably it 
contains a small quantity, and further it operates ata higher tempera- 
ture (about 60° to 65° C.) and in a miis time (5 minutes at most); 
(3) the filtered juice differs chemically fro m pepsin in that it gives no 
precipitate on boiling and further that it is precipitated by mercuric 
chloride, iodine, and all the mineral acids ; (4) it resembles pepsin in 
eing precipitated by neutral acetate of lead, and not giving a 
precipitate ich sulphate of copper and perchloride of iron (Pharm. 
Journ., Nov. 30th 8). 
r. Geissler, experimenting in the same direction, found that papain 
could dissolve 28 times its weight of coagulated albumen, while pepsin 
dissolved 100 times its own weight. 
In 1879 Dr. Theodor Peckolt, of Brazil, made a very complete 
analysis of the fruit, leaves and seeds of Carica Papaya, and he found 
papayotin in nearly every part of the ansa plant, besides other organic 
constituents which he separated and estimated. 
Dr. Sidney Martin of London was ail next to investi igate t he peculiar oo 
principle of abe fruit. He showed in 1886 — of Physiology) : 
that papain w oteolytie ferment which acts ilarly to 
trypsin. aren! ments performed with meat fibrin at whit te of egg 
showed that slight digestion takes place when the liquid is faintly acid, 
neutral or alkaline solutions, and occurs most readily at a tempera- 
ture between 35° and 40^ Fahr. The results of the digestion a 
peptones, leucine, and tyrosine, and an EE globulin-like 
substance similar to that formed i in pancreatic digesti 
In the author’s second paper on the same ubjedk the ferment i in 
papaw juice is shown. to be associated with an albumose, and to give 
the following reactions in addition to those previously "described by 
MAR :— Ihe solution oe a biuret reaction, and it is precipitated from 
neutral solution of sodium, magnesium sulphate or sodium chloride 
sea as globulins are. de is soluble in glycerol, and if precipitated 
