New combe, — Cellulose- Enzymes. 5 1 
Griiss 1 has corrected this list, and finds hemicellulose present 
in all walls in which the Barley-ferment effects a change. 
The presence of acid was found by de Bary 2 and by Brown 
and Morris 3 to promote the action of the ferment. 
In their paper already cited, Brown and Morris express the 
view that the cellulose-dissolving power of the Barley is due 
to a special enzyme, and not to the diastase. They found 
that by heating the Barley-extract for thirty minutes at a 
temperature of 6o°, its cytohydrolytic power was almost 
wholly paralyzed ; while its amylohydrolytic power was not 
diminished by heating to 70°. Griiss 4 , without more evidence 
than that furnished by the fact that Barley-malt-extract 
dissolves reserve cellulose, and the fact that extract from 
Date-cotyledons attacks starch, has assumed in all his writings 
that diastase is a cellulose-enzyme, and also that wherever 
cellulose-enzymes are known, they are diastase. He suggests 
that the failure of the Barley-extract to attack cellulose after 
the extract had been heated to 6o° by Brown and Morris 
may have been due to a weakening of the diastase by heating. 
A strong diastase solution, he says, will hydrolyze reserve 
cellulose. 
Reinitzer 5 , in a recent paper, seeks to strengthen Griiss’s 
position by demonstrating what has long been known, that 
the wall-substance of the Barley-endosperm is easily hydro- 
lyzed, and thereby suggesting the probability of the starch- 
enzyme being also the cell-wall enzyme. 
It is believed that the following pages, besides extending 
our knowledge of the distribution of enzymes, will show that 
the assumption of the identity of all wall-dissolving enzymes 
with diastase is at present far from justified. 
1 Ueber das Verhalten des diastatischen Enzyms in der Keimpflanze : Jahrb. f. 
wiss. Bot., xxvi. 379. 
2 L. c. 3 L. c. 
4 Ueber das Verhalten des diastatischen Enzyms in der Keimpflanze ; Jahrb. f. wiss. 
Bot., xxvi, (1894), 379 : Ueber die Einwirkung der Diastase-Fermente auf Reserve- 
cellulose; Ber. d. d. b. Gesellsch., xii, Generalver. Hft., p. 60 : Ueber Losungvon 
Cellulose durch Enzyme (Cytase) ; Abstract in Chem. Centrlblt., 1896, Bd. i, 313. 
5 Ueber das Zellwandlosende Enzym der Gerste ; Hoppe-Seyler’s Zeitschr. 
f. physiol. Chemie, xxiii. 175. 
