Green.- — On Vegetable Ferments. 1 1 7 
hours at a temperature of about 30° C. He found that the 
resting seed contained a certain amount of enzyme, and that 
this was increased at the onset of germination. 
Enzymes of Fungi. 
The ferments existing in the lowlier plants have only within 
recent years come to be regarded as corresponding to those so 
far described. The old division into organised and unorgan- 
ised ferments was held to be a very sharp and well-defined 
one, and all the lower Fungi were classed with the former, 
whatever their mode of action. That this view was not well 
founded is evident from the facts that are detailed above as 
to the existence of isolable invertase in Yeast and Fusarum, 
and of the cytohydrolyst in Botrytis. To this point, however, 
we shall return shortly. Another member of the yeast-family 
contains a ferment which can be separated from it by appro- 
priate treatment, and which therefore weakens further the old 
distinction. This is the so-called Torula Ureae , which flourishes 
in solutions of urea or in putrefying urine, on which it appears 
to subsist, decomposing the urea with formation of ammonium 
carbonate. It was first investigated by Miiller 1 , Pasteur 2 , 
and Van Tieghem 3 , and later by Musculus 4 , and more com- 
pletely by Lea 5 . The latter observer obtained from fer- 
menting urine a copious development of the Torula , and found 
that from the cells he was able to isolate an active principle 
which was capable of decomposing urea in the way the un- 
altered Torula did. The urine, with its contained organisms, 
was precipitated by strong alcohol, dehydrated and dried. A 
little of the resulting powder introduced into a 1 per cent, 
solution of urea and kept at 38° C. gave an alkaline reaction 
in a few minutes, and very soon caused a powerful odour of 
ammonia to be noticed. The precipitate when treated with 
distilled water gives the enzyme up to it, for when the un- 
dissolved matter, consisting chiefly of the cell-bodies, mucus 
1 Joura. f. prakt. Chem. Bd. LXXXI, i860, S. 467. 
2 Compt. Rend. t. L, p. 869. 3 Compt. Rend. t. LVIII, p. 210. 
4 Compt. Rend. t. LXXVIII, p. 132, and Ibid. t. LXXXII, p. 333. 
5 Journal of Physiology, vol. VI, p. 136. 
