174 O'Brien . — The Proteids of Wheat, 
has not been otherwise used with reference to plants) to 
denote that portion of the alcohol-soluble part of gluten 
(glian) which is soluble in cold water. As De Saussure was 
mainly concerned to find the constituent of gluten which 
effects the conversion of starch into sugar, and as he thought 
that mucine was the active substance, it was to this that he 
gave his chief attention, not distinguishing between glutine 
and myxon, as is shown in the following table — 
! Insoluble in alcohol Eiweiss [zymom]. 
Soluble in alcohol, insoluble in water Glutine [glutine and myxon]. 
Soluble in alcohol and in water Mucine. 
From his omission of any distinct mention of what I have 
called myxon, later writers have identified his mucine with it : 
but as myxon represents about two-thirds of the dry weight 
of gluten, and mucine only i°/ o , this is an impossible inter- 
pretation of his results. 
Almost simultaneously with De Saussure’s work, that of 
Payen and Persoz resulted in the discovery of diastase. 
Doubtless to the mixture of this ferment with gluten is due 
the action on starch which Kirchof (1813) attributed to 
gluten itself, De Saussure to mucine. A solution prepared as 
he prepared mucine, by constant reprecipitation by water of 
the glutine in the glian-extract, would contain diastase ; but it 
is difficult to believe that it could retain its diastatic power if 
the first part of the preparation had been effected by boiling. 
Boussingault 8 in 1837 made a further step by the chemical 
analysis of crude gluten, of alcohol-soluble gluten (glian), and 
of pure gluten obtained by the solution of gluten in acetic add 
and its precipitation by ammonium carbonate. He like- 
wise noted that gluten does not constitute the whole of the 
nitrogenous matter of flour, extracting from the washings of 
gluten i°/ o of an albumin coagulating at 8o° C. [Cf. Einhofis 
Pflanzeneiweiss from rye 3a ; and an albumin described by 
M. Henri in the washings of gluten, 1822.] The amount of 
nitrogen found in pure gluten was large, i8*9°/ 0 , agreeing 
closely with that in the albumin, i 8*4°/ o . 
Mulder 0 likewise analysed both albumin and myxon from 
