1894.] Chemico-Physiological Discoveries: The Cell. 115 
is simply dissolved in water and allowed to stand exposed 
to the air for a long time, the solution gradually becomes 
dark in color, accompanied by a dissociation in which formic 
acid, prussic acid, oxalate of ammonia and urea result, 
together with a certain amount of azulminic acid; reactions 
which again emphasize the cyanogen-like character of the 
adenin molecule. 
Such being the nature of adenin, it is not to be doubted 
that bodies emanating from this substance with strong affini- 
ties must be important actors in the physiological and chemical 
processes, especially those of a synthetical order, going on in 
all cellular tissues. In this connection it is to be remembered 
that Pfliiger on purely theoretical grounds ascribed great im- 
portance to the physological rôle played by the cyanogen group 
with polymerization, etc., in the living albumin molecule. Dead 
albumin, such as we see in the white of egg, blood-fibrin, ete., is 
a comparatively stable substance, indifferent to neutral oxygen, 
not readily prone to change, and yielding decomposition pro- 
ducts by no means identical with the cyanogen-like bodies 
resulting from normal proteid metabolism. Evidently then the 
dead food-albumin in being assimilated is reconstructed on a 
different plan, the atoms are rearranged and in the living 
albumin molecule, as in the protoplasm of the cell, we are lad 
to infer a close union of the carbon and nitrogen with formation 
of the comparatively unstable cyanogen group. In the dead 
protoplasm, on the other hand, the nitrogen of the proteid is 
joined directly with hydrogen to form amidogen (NH,), but in 
the processes of anabolism going on in all living cells, the , 
nitrogen is detached from the hydrogen and made to combine 
more directly with carbon to form the more unstable group 
CN. Asa result, the katabolic products of proteid metabolism 
known to us are the cyanogen-containing bodies, guanin, uric 
acid, creatin and the related body urea. These are products 
of the katabolism of living protoplasm, and in the discovery 
of adenin and its close relationship to the typical xanthin 
we have added proof of the existence of cyanogen- 
containing radicals in the protoplasm of the cell, especially in 
the karyoplasm of the nucleus. In all of these xanthin 
Sze Drechsel, however, Der Abban der Eiweissstoffe. Du Bois Reymond’s 
Archiv, 1891, p. 248. : 
