42 
MR. J. R. GREEN ON THE CHANGES IN THE PROTEIDS 
series peculiar to vegetable organisms. Inasmuch as these were not shown to 
approach the animal proteicls in any particular direction, and on account of the paucity 
of the reactions known to characterise them, nothing was done in the direction of 
ascertaining their fate during germination. 
In 1877 # and 188Of Weyl and Zoller began to place them on the same footing 
as animal proteids, and to show how they resembled them, establishing the existence 
of globulins in seeds. About the same time a series of elaborate investigations, by 
Vines, | cleared up many points of difficulty, and gave us for the first time a clear 
conception of the chemical nature of these reserve vegetable proteids which exist in the 
seed in the form of the so-called aleurone grains. According to the latter observer, 
these consist of members of the great groups of the albumoses and the globulins. 
The nature of the aleurone grains, or stores of vegetable proteids, now being, 
at any rate generally, understood, it becomes possible to ascertain something about 
the nitrogenous metabolism of the process of germination as a whole; to see whether 
it is a process of ferment action, for this really can hardly be considered established, 
though rendered highly probable, by v. Gorup-Besanez’s experiments on fibrin, the 
aleurone being greatly different from this form of proteid; to ascertain whether, if so, 
the action can go as far as the formation of crystalline nitrogenous bodies; and to 
trace the series of changes in the proteids which take place as the germination 
proceeds. 
During the past year I have endeavoured to deal experimentally with these 
questions, and for the purposes of the investigation have taken the Lupin as, for 
many reasons, the most suitable. The seeds are of large size, and germinate very 
readily: from Vines’s work the approximate composition of the proteid reserve 
materials is very well known ; and according to v. Gorup-Besanez, in plants nearly 
related, i. e. the Vetches, a proteolytic ferment exists. In his paper already alluded 
to, the latter writer states that with the Lupin he only obtained a negative 
result ; but, for the reasons mentioned, it seemed not impossible that such a ferment 
existed. 
The products of the decomposition of fibrin by proteolytic ferments being well 
understood and easily recognisable, my first experiments were directed to the action 
of the extract of the seeds on this body. A considerable quantity, about a quarter of 
a peck, of the seeds of Lupinus hirsutus were germinated for four days in a green¬ 
house, and when the radicle had grown to a length of about 2-3 inches they were 
removed, the cotyledons separated from the other parts, and ground in a mill. 
V. Gorup-Besanez prepared his extracts by an elaborate process of dehydration by 
alcohol, extracting with glycerine, &c., several times repeated.§ This method was 
* 1 Zeitschr. f. Physiol. Cliem.,’ vol. 1, 1877. ‘ Deutsch. Chern. Gesell. Bel’.,’ Jahrg'. 13, 1880, p. 367. 
t ‘ Deutsch. Chem. Gesell. Ber.,’ Jahrg. 13, 1880, p. 1064. 
J ‘ Journ. of Physiol.,’ vol. 3 (No. 2). 
§ His extract so prepared would yet contain a large amount of albumose which is soluble in glycerine 
