The Proteids of Wheat. 
BY 
M. O’BRIEN, B.Sc., 
Scholar of the 1851 Exhibition . 
[The small reference figures throughout the Article refer to the 
numbers in the Bibliography given at the end.] 
I. 
OWADAYS we are so accustomed to think of definite 
-1 Al grains as the normal form of nitrogenous reserves in 
seeds, that we look on the occurrence of gluten in wheat as 
exceptional. Curiously enough, however, it seems to have 
been the first form investigated, so that we find physiological 
chemists at the beginning of this century trying to identify 
the nitrogenous organic substances of other seeds with the 
gluten of wheat. The same idea is embodied in the name 
Klebermehl , given by Hartig (1855 16a ) to what are known as 
aleuron-grains, and in the term Aleuron itself which he intro- 
duced (1856 16 b ) for the nitrogenous crystalloid parts of these 
grains. 
This however was nearly a hundred years after the death 
of Beccari 1 (1766), who first investigated and isolated the 
tenacious substance to be obtained from wheat-flour by 
* washing; and named it gluten. It probably soon attracted 
attention, but its characteristics cannot have been very fully 
studied last century, for we find Einhof stating in 1805 that 
chemists deny its solubility in alcohol. (Reference is given 
to Cadet 2 as one of these.) 
[Annals of Botany, Vol. IX. No. XXXIV. June, 1895.] 
O 
