1184 Steward.—Amyloclastic Secretory Capacities of the 
Earlier researches, notably those of Rechyler, 1 bear the suggestion of 
the possibility of autonomous enzyme augmentation by the inner endosperm, 
and associated with it is the idea that starch digestion must necessarily be 
the concomitant. 
The positive experimental results adduced in the preceding sections 
amply confirm the first part of this suggestion. The isolated endosperm 
does possess this augmentative capacity; the phenomenon occurs under 
each set of experimental conditions exploited, and is quite independent of 
enzymatic or other possible influential substances which originate or are 
elaborated in either the aleurone layer or integuments. 
In brief, under the conditions described the pre-existent amylase 
of the inner endosperm undergoes reinforcement, and the point is capable 
of experimental demonstration. 
When we turn to similarly conducted experiments with the isolated 
endosperm, not only is augmentation of amylase of a superior order of 
magnitude a persistent feature, but accompanying it there is marked 
evidence, both microscopical and biochemical, of starch digestion and 
depletion, features which are conspicuous by their absence or marked 
reduction in magnitude in the experiments with the inner endosperm. 
Were it not for the independent proof of the secretory activity of the 
aleurone layer, it might be claimed that the auto-digestive phenomena 
presented by the isolated endosperms were entirely due to some indirect 
influence exercised by the former tissue, e. g. by the inward diffusion of 
salts or salt-like bodies or substances with amphoteric properties which 
respectively aid solubilization of the latent enzyme and afford the liberated 
enzyme adequate protection. 
It is conceded that influences of the kind enumerated may, and 
probably do, play a role similar to that indicated in the general assemblage 
of processes which comprise the phenomena of starch digestion, but the 
view advanced here is that these influences are purely of an adjunctive type, 
and are overwhelmingly overshadowed by the role enacted by the enzyme 
which arises as the result of the operation of the secretory mechanism of 
the living aleuronedayer tissue. The evidence for this view lies in the very 
different results which attend the suppression of this secretory mechanism, 
and which are put forward in a later section. 
The means there adopted, while they annihilate the glandular functions 
of the aleurone layer, do not preclude the diffusion of salt-like combination 
from this tissue into the inner endosperm. Why then, if digestion of the 
inner endosperm starch contents is independent of the secretions of the 
aleurone layer, does not the process, if it is conditioned by agents other 
than the actual secretions derived from this tissue, proceed in the same 
1 Ber.d. d. Chem. Ges,, 1899, xxii, p. 414. 
