516 
BIOCHEMISTRY: ABEL AND PINCOFFS 
the use of certain methods which will shortly be described in detail we 
have found that a secondary albumose (to name only a single proteose 
which is sharply differentiated from all native proteids and primary 
proteoses) can be isolated in small amounts from all of the cellular tissues 
of the body thus far examined. Skeletal muscle appears to contain 
albumose in the smallest amount, gastric and intestinal mucosa contain 
it even after four days' starvation, much more during digestion of a meat 
meal, while organs like the thyroid gland contain much more, weight for 
weight, than skeletal muscle. We have not as yet been able to isolate 
definitely a true proteose of any sort from the plasma of the blood, though 
able to show that the cellular elements of the blood yield a readily demon- 
strable amount of albumose. 
It was not originally our purpose to study these proteoses or to isolate 
them from the various tissues, but finding them always present in our final 
products whenever we attempted to isolate certain 'hormones,' such as 
the intestinal motiline and secre tine, 'even when our methods of treating 
the tissues could not have produced them, we were forced to undertake 
a study of methods for their separation from the hormones. A future 
communication in these Proceedings will deal with this question. 
Conclusions — 1. Secondary albumoses and possibly peptones (or 
polypeptids if the term is preferred) were found to be present in all of 
the therapeutically used extracts of the posterior lobe of the hypophysis 
cerebri that were examined. To what extent the proteose content of the 
gland may have been increased by autolysis or by processes incidental 
to the manufacture of the extracts it is impossible for us to state. We 
believe, nevertheless, that the perfectly fresh, bloodless glands yield 
proteoses, inasmuch as we have actually isolated such substances from 
the thyroid gland and other organs when taken from the animal immedi- 
ately after bleeding it to death. 
2. The 'Hypophysin' of the Farbwerke-Hoechst Company is not, as 
claimed for it, "a solution of the isolated active substances of the 
pituitary gland" but a mixture of albumoses (and possibly peptones) 
with varying and unknown amounts of active and inactive constituents 
of the gland. The albumoses present in 'Hypophysin' account fully 
for the chemical reactions (such as the biuret and the Pauly reactions and 
the left-handed rotation) which are stated to characterize the pretended 
active principles. The albumoses as separated from pituitary extracts 
are devoid of action upon the uterus. In view of the facts here presented 
it must be evident that the active principles of the hypophysis cerebri 
have not yet been isolated as chemical individuals. 
