1 1 2 Green . — On Vegetable Ferments . 
the latter enzyme. The proteose is really a mixture of two 
bodies, corresponding fairly well with Kuhne’s hetero- and 
dys-albumose. 
When the proteids of the seeds are used instead of fibrin, 
the course of the digestion is similar; acid albumin, peptone, 
and amide-bodies are produced, the latter including asparagin, 
which does not occur in the digestion of fibrin. 
The value of it to the germinating seed is therefore its 
power to convert the stored proteids of the latter into such 
bodies as can readily pass out of the cells in which the proteids 
are deposited, and make their way to the growing parts of the 
young seedling. 
Besides the Lupin, this ferment is found to occur in the 
endosperm of germinating seeds of Ricinus communis , the 
Castor-oil plant 1 . 
Another proteohydrolytic ferment was described in 1892 by 
Daccomo and Tommasi 2 as obtainable from A 7 iagctllis arvensis . 
It can be isolated under the form of a white amorphous 
substance, easily soluble in water. If the fresh plant be 
reduced to power and kept in contact with fresh meat or 
fibrin at a temperature of 6o° C. for four or five hours, the 
authors say that it is considerably softened, though complete 
disintegration is not effected in less than thirty-six hours. 
The ferment is stated to have the property of destroying 
fleshy growths and horny warts. 
Rennet. Another ferment, which, from its resemblance to the 
rennet of the animal organism, may be presumed to belong to 
the class of proteohydrolysts, has been noted by many observers 
as being widely distributed in the vegetable kingdom. Its 
occurrence is much like that of the peptic and tryptic classes, 
it being found in very various parts of different plants. Prior, 
in his Popular Names of British Plants, speaks of a curious 
property of Galium verum , which was noted by Matthioli in the 
sixteenth century, who wrote of it, ‘ Galium inde nomen sortitum 
est suum quod lac coagulet.’ Even now in the West of England 
1 Green, Proc. Roy. Soc. vol. XLVIII, p. 377. 
2 Abs. in Rev. de Therap. LTX, p. 470. 
