52 
MR, J. R. GREEN ON THE CHANGES IN THE PROTEIDS 
2. This zymogen is readily converted into ferment by the action of dilute acids. 
3. The zymogen is destroyed by the action of C0 2 , but the ferment is not. 
4. Both zymogen and ferment are injured by the action of alkalis. There was not 
such a difference in the rate of injury as, from Langley and Edkins’s results on 
pepsinogen, I expected to find. 
The conditions of germination, and the preliminary changes which take place at its 
onset and really start it, may be deduced from these considerations. The reaction of 
the resting seed is neutral, and the contents of the cells are dry. On the admission of 
water to the cells, which invariably precedes germination, the reaction rapidly becomes 
acid, probably by certain decompositions made to take place in the protoplasm, 
whereby vegetable acids are formed. This seems not an unreasonable hypothesis, 
as the rapid formation of such acids in turgid cells is the only way in which the 
continual turgescence can be maintained, the latter depending on the osmotic 
equivalent of the acid. This acid, reacting on the zymogen present in the cells, 
clevelopes from it the ferment, under the action of which the transformation of the 
resting products can readily take place. 
5. Action of the ferment on the proteids of the seed. 
The existence of the ferment and certain of the features of its action thus havino; 
been ascertained, it remained to investigate the result of its working on the proteid 
bodies existing in the seed. According to Vines,* these consist in the Lupin of a 
mixture of hemialbumose and a vegetable globulin. From the recent researches of 
Kuhne and Chittenden,! the body hitherto called hemialbumose by them appears to 
be a mixture of, in many cases, four distinct albumoses. I had not time, unfortu¬ 
nately, to submit Vines’s hemialbumose to very elaborate investigation, but I was 
able to see that it is composed of at least two albumoses, which correspond fairly 
well with Kuhne’s protalbumose and heteroalbumose. 
A watery extract of the ground resting seeds was boiled to separate the globulin 
which had dissolved by the assistance of the inorganic salts in the seed ; it was then 
filtered and submitted to dialysis. None of the albumose passed the dialyser even 
after more than a week’s exposure ; the dialysate gave no biuret reaction, and a faint 
opalescence only with excess of alcohol. A. trace of sugar passed through, but not more 
than the merest trace. After twenty-four hours’ exposure I found that the removal of 
the salts had caused a, copious precipitate to fall, while the solution, freed from this pre¬ 
cipitate, gave a further precipitate on addition of HN0 3 . A little of the boiled original 
extract, containing, as noted, a small quantity of inorganic salts, gave a fairly good 
precipitate on large dilution with water. All these precipitates behaved like albumoses 
in that they were dissolved on heating the solution in which they were suspended, and 
came down again as the liquid cooled. 
* Op. cit. 
t Op. cit. 
