February 17, 1905.] 



SCIENCE. 



249 



known. Fermentation had been shown to 

 be due to an enzyme. Was anaerobic res- 

 piration also due to an enzyme? 



Of course enzymes are known to be pres- 

 ent in a great many of the parts of plants, 

 and the oxidizing enzymes seemed to be the 

 sort to be sought. But none seemed to 

 answer the conditions. At last, however, 

 the object appears to have been attained. 

 Stoklasa, in a series of papers published in 

 various journals* but all dealing with the 

 same general problem, declares he has 

 found in various tissues of animals and in 

 considerable number of plants an enzyme 

 analogous to Buchner's zymase, and like it 

 glycolytic. This enzyme he reports in 

 leaves and roots of beet, tubers of potato, 

 seeds, seedlings and young plants of pea, 

 seedlings of barley, and entire plants of 

 Paris qiiadrifolia. Confirmatory results 

 have (naturally enough) been obtained by 

 several students or assistants who have evi- 

 dently been engaged upon portions of the 

 problem under the guidance of Stoklasa. 

 It is only fair to say that Maze has strongly 

 criticized Stoklasa 's methods from the bac- 

 teriological side and declares himself un- 

 able to secure like fermentation under 

 aseptic conditions; though Stoklasa claims 

 to have guarded carefully against infection 



* Stoklasa, ' Identitiit anaerob. Atmiing u. 

 Giining.' Ocsterr. Chcm. Zcit. 1903. (Not 

 seen. ) 



Stoklasa, Jellnek and Vitek, ' Der anaer. 

 Stoffweclisel der holi. Pfl. und seine Bezielmng ■/.. 

 alcoh. Giining.' Beiir. s. Chcm. Physiol. ii. I'atli. 

 3: 460. 1903. 



Stoklasa and C'eiiiy, ' Isoliei ung des die aiiaer. 

 Atniuiig der Zelle der lioh. org. Pfl. und Tiere 

 bevvirk. Enzymes.' Brr. f)eiit.scli Chcm. (Icsells. 

 36: fi22-634. 1903. 



' Ueber die anaer. Atni. der Tierorgane ii. 



ueber die Isolienmg eines giirungserregenden 

 Enzymes aus dem Tierorganisnius.' Zentralbl. 

 Physiol. 16: 052-658. 1903. 



Stoklasa, ' Ueber die Atnningsenzyine.' Ber. 

 Deutsch. Bot. (Icsells. 22: 358-301. 1904. 



Various p;i])(Ms in .\nnalcs In.st. Paslciir 18: 

 1904. 



and to have rejected contaminated cultures. 

 Independently, Maze has found what he 

 calls zymase, in connection with pea seed- 

 lings, Aspergillus, and Eurotiopsis. He 

 declares it 'an enzyme normal to all plants, 

 arising like all the other enzymes during 

 vegetative (aerobic) life.' In the higher 

 plants, however, and in mo.st fungi it 'is 

 oxidized with the greatest ease, so that one 

 never finds more than a trace of it.' 



Maze and Stoklasa interpret their resiUts 

 somewhat differently. Maze holding the 

 process of fermeTitation to be a nutritive 

 one,* sugar only being assimilable when, 

 fermented and the nascent alcohol thus 

 made available, while Stoklasa believes 

 fermentation to be merely anaerobic respi- 

 ration and essentially a process for the 

 immediate release of energy. 



Confirmation comes also from another 

 source, for Godlewski,t working with 

 lupines, finds similar products, and con- 

 eludes that their 'anaerobic respiration is 

 identical with alcoholic fermentation, or at 

 least in essence dependent on it. ' 



Moreover Kostytschew j" and Maximow§ 

 have found in Aspergillus an enzyme which 

 is analogous to zymase and is responsible 

 for the formation of CO^, whether in aer- 

 obic or anaerobic respiration. 



Thus several independent observers are 

 testifying to the rather widespread occur- 

 rence of an enzyme which brings about a 

 disruption of plant substance, under most 

 varied external conditions, whether the 



* Iwanowsky in 1894 propounded the theory that 

 alcoholic fermentation is a pathological case in the 

 ■nutrition of yeast, called forth by tlie abnormal 

 composition of the nutritive medium. 



t ' Weiterer Beitr. z. Kennt. der intramol. 

 Atmung.' Bull. Acad. Set. Cracovie 190i: 115-158. 

 See also his earlier paper with Polzeniusz. Bull, 

 cit., April, 1901. 



J ' Ueber Atmungsenzymc der Schimmelpilze.' 

 Ber. Deutsch. Bot. (Icsells. 22: 207-215. 1904. 



§ ' Zur Frage iiber die Atnuing.' //(■/•. Deutsch. 

 Bot. Oesells. 22: 225-235. 1904. 



