1 1 1 
Green.— On V eg etab le Fermen ts. 
of working and denied the accuracy of his results. There 
seems from later researches no doubt however that von Gorup- 
Besanez was in the main correct. 
In 1887 the writer published 1 an account of some investi- 
gations into the germinative processes of the Lupin which 
established the existence of von Gorup-Besanez’s enzyme, and 
which pointed out the nature and conditions of its action, as 
well as the value of it to the plant. The enzyme does not 
exist as such in the resting seed, but makes its appearance at 
the onset of germination. A very active extract can be pre- 
pared from seeds which have been germinated four days. 
The fleshy cotyledons, if ground and soaked with glycerine for 
a few hours, give up to the solvent a quantity of the ferment, 
which can be purified from the products of its activity by 
dialysis. It works, unlike papain, most advantageously in an 
acid medium, the degree of acidity most favourable being 
*2 per cent. HC 1 , which is a little more intense than the 
reaction of the germinating seed itself. It will not act in the 
presence of alkalis, even though very dilute, and neutral salts 
impede it. It is utterly destroyed by not very prolonged 
contact with even dilute alkalis. Like other ferments it is 
destroyed by boiling. 
When a dialysed glycerine-extract is allowed to act on 
fibrin in a parchment-paper dialyser kept at a temperature of 
40° C., the extract and the external fluid being both kept acid 
to the extent of ‘2 per cent. HC1, the dialysate soon contains 
peptone and leucin and tyrosin. In the digestion-tube there 
can be found, besides the undigested fibrin, a certain amount 
of acid-albumin, and some albumoses. The ferment, like 
the ferment of pancreatic juice, apparently decomposes the 
fibrin first into acid-albumin and proteoses, and later these 
give rise to peptone, leucin, and tyrosin, following the course 
of proteolysis suggested by Kuhne. Like the animal trypsin, 
the process is rather one of corrosion than of solution. The 
digestion contains, however, more proteose than is formed by 
1 Green, On the changes in the proteids in the seed which accompany germina- 
tion, Phil. Trans., vol. 178 (1887), B. p. 39. 
