44 



Scientific Proceedings (31). 



There is nothing contradictory in the idea that one and the 

 same gland cell in one segment of the digestive tract may contain 

 two kinds of chemical messengers for the succeeding segment of 

 the digestive apparatus. One kind stimulates secretion in the fol- 

 lowing segment and a second kind inhibits or arrests it. 



Starling (" Recent Advances in the Physiology of Digestion," 

 p. 90) speaks only of hormones (from opfjuLo), to excite, arouse or 

 stimulate). But on reflection it must be evident that for the nor- 

 mal regulation of life processes, it may, under certain conditions, be 

 equally important that any process of secretion or vascular tonus 

 should be capable of inhibition by chemical messengers. Two 

 such diagonally opposed chemical substances which are con- 

 cerned in coagulation have been isolated from lymphocytes by Lil- 

 ienfeld and Delezenne, one of which leuconuclein favors coagual- 

 tion and a second histon which inhibits it. The leuconuclein 

 corresponds to the hormones but the histon is an inhibitor. For 

 such chemic bodies — physiologic arresters like histon — I would 

 suggest the name koliones from the Greek xwhjcov, to inhibit, to 

 prevent, arrest or check. 



16 (354) 



A critical study of the conditions under which zjnnase and its 

 associated co-enzyme bring about alcoholic fermentation. 



By GEORGE H. A. CLOWES. 



\_From the Agricultural Chemical Laboratory of Professor Buchner 

 in Berlin, and the New York State Laboratory, Bttffalo.'] 



Zymase, the enzyme of yeast discovered in 1896 has since been 

 proved by Harden and Young to consist of two parts, (i) zymase 

 proper, an enzyme-like body possessed of high molecular com- 

 plexity, non-diffusible and thermo-labile, and (2) a readily dif- 

 fusible, thermo-stabile, relatively simple, chemical complex, which, 

 for lack of a better term, has been designated as the co-enzyme of 

 zymase. 



Harden and Young separated the bodies in question by dif- 

 fusion, but owing to the paucity of their materials and the destruc- 

 tive effect exerted by secondary causes during the lengthy process 



