172 O'Brien . — The Proteids of Wheat. 
Einhof’s 3 researches seem to have been chiefly concerned 
with rye and barley, among the cereals ; but incidentally he 
describes some of the properties of the gluten of wheat. By 
washing rye-flour a tough gluten-like mass is at first obtained, 
but on continuing the washing this mass breaks down to 
a crumbly substance — a fact which he attributes to the sugar 
and Pflanzenschleim present. His results may be thus 
tabulated : — 
N. matter soluble l coagulated on boiling (i) Pflanzeneiweiss. 
in water | not coagulated (2) Honey-like residue on evaporation. 
The residue (2) may be resolved by treatment with alcohol 
into— 
i. Kleber Soluble in alcohol. 
ii. Pflanzenschleim Soluble only in water. 
The c Schleim ’ he seems to consider capable of being 
transformed into sugar 3b , and therefore of the nature of a gum 
or carbo-hydrate ; it is, however, probably nitrogenous in 
character, giving a precipitate with tannic acid (cf. Ritt- 
hausen’s Mucedin ; Einhofs Schleim , however, is precipitated 
by alcohol). The Kleber he identifies with the gluten of 
wheat, which, likewise, he describes as soluble in alcohol. 
Wheat-gluten, he says, though insoluble in the cold, dissolves 
on boiling with alcohol : whence we might conclude that it 
entirely did so, but for his statement that not so much of 
gluten dissolves when separated as is the case when it is still 
mixed with the other constituents of flour. His attempt to 
identify gluten with the albumin ( Pflanzeneiweiss ) is inter- 
esting, but it had to be abandoned because albumin is 
precipitated by alcohol, whilst gluten is to some extent 
soluble in it. Though his work is but little quoted, there is 
surely justice in his claim, ‘ zu fernern Untersuchungen wenig- 
stens die Bahn gebrochen zu haben.’ 
Taddei 4 however is usually credited with having, in 1819, 
first divided gluten into two substances by means of alcohol : 
Glut n \ so ^ u ^ e * n boiling alcohol gliadin. 
u e ( residue, insoluble in alcohol zymom. 
