309 
Vines. — The Proteases of Plants. 
Shortly afterwards the matter was investigated by Bourquelot and 
Hdrissey (12). They found that a filtered watery extract of Agaricus 
{Amanita) muscarius digested five-sixths of the caseinogen of skim-milk 
within four days, and they detected tyrosin in the digested liquid. Similar 
results were obtained with Polyporus sulfureus. 
In the course of a few experiments with the mushroom, I obtained 
evidence (13) that the tissue can both peptonize fibrin and peptolyse the 
lower proteids, thus confirming in a general way the conclusions of my 
predecessors. 
Somewhat more recently the matter has been taken up by Delezenne 
and Mouton (14), and with widely different results. They prepared extracts, 
using normal saline solution (o*8°/ o NaCl) with chloroform or toluol, of the 
dried pilei of various species (the Mushroom, Amanita muscaria, Amanita 
citrina, Hypholoma fasciculare) , which readily peptolysed peptone, and 
digested gelatine and casein, but had no action on fibrin. This last result 
seems so contradictory to previous observations that I have thought it 
necessary to make some further experiments to test its accuracy. 
Peptonization. 
The test applied was the disappearance of a relatively small quantity 
of fibrin. The laminae were in all cases removed from the pileus. 
In the first instance the actual tissue, reduced to a pulp, was made use 
of : provided that the material was mature, the pileus being fully expanded, 
the result was that digestion of fibrin took place. 
Experiment 1. io grms. fresh mushroom-pulp were digested with ioocc. dis- 
tilled water containing chloroform (0-25 %) and 2 grms. fibrin for 26 hours ; at the 
end of this time the fibrin was completely disintegrated. 
Experiment 2. 15 grms. fresh mushroom-pulp were digested with 1 00 cc. 
chloroform- water (0-5 %) and 2 grms. fibrin : after 24 hours’ digestion the fibrin was 
dissolved. 
Experiment 3. In an experiment similar to and contemporaneous with the 
preceding, where the antiseptic was HCN (0.2 %), the fibrin was disintegrated and 
mainly dissolved. 
When a watery extract of the fresh ripe pileus was used, from which 
the solid matter had been removed either by straining through muslin 
or by filtering through paper, the result was less certain : in most cases the 
fibrin seemed to be somewhat diminished in quantity, but rapid and com- 
plete solution was not constant. The following are some of the more 
successful experiments : — 
Experiment 4. 1 grm. of fibrin was digested with 50 cc. of a watery extract of 
40 grms. mushroom-pulp with 200 cc. distilled water, with HCN to 0-2 % : within 24 
hours the fibrin was completely disintegrated. 
