2io O'Brien — The Proteids of Wheat. 
by no means fit in with the globulin-theory. He estimated 
the amount of soluble albuminoids (i. e. globulin and pro- 
teose) and that of gluten from the most varied wheats, and 
there is no relation to be observed in his tabulated results : 
e. g. 
9 has *9% sol. abuminoid 8-09% gluten 
3 » » - 9 1 
5.00 
16 „ 1.69 
n 
6.25 
17 „ 1.69 
8-21 „ 
42 2.03 
8-54 
32 „ 2.84 
> > 
5-54 
A proportion between gluten and albuminate is much more 
traceable, as the following figures show : — 
Albuminate 8*3% gluten 
10.5% 
„ 8.08 
9.89 1 
„ 8.23 
10.68 1 
„ 8-24 
I? 
12.8 j 
„ 7-06 
n 
10.7 j 
Moreover after removal of the albuminate by alcohol no 
gluten can be obtained from flour. 
There must, then, be an extremely close connexion between 
gluten and the albuminate : so close as to justify us in saying 
that the substance which appears as the former as the result of 
hydration, appears as the latter on the exhaustion of flour by 
alcohol. As yet there is not much evidence as to the form in 
which it exists in flour. That it does not exist as gluten is 
clear — for in that case we should obtain from a given weight 
of flour the same amount of alcohol-soluble proteid, whether 
we at once extract the flour with the alcohol directly, or treat 
with alcohol the gluten obtained from the given weight of 
flour. The former amount is the larger, showing that the pre- 
cursor of gluten is more soluble in alcohol than is gluten itself. 
And though the proteid extracted with alcohol from flour 
cannot be very far removed from the mother-substance of 
gluten (for it still has the power of gluten-formation), yet we 
cannot extract from it a proteid exactly in the state in which 
the gluten-precursor exists in flour. The residue which we 
obtain by evaporation is somewhat less soluble in acids than 
the mother-substance, which may be entirely dissolved in 
