IN THE SEED WHICH ACCOMPANY GERMINATION. 
59 
Lupin ferment may be caused by the slowness of action of tlie latter allowing it to 
accumulate before the process can be carried further. 
The next point I wish to call attention to is the formation of acid-albumin or para- 
peptone in the digestive process brought about by the Lupin ferment in a solution of 
albumoses. Whether these are identical with Kuhne’s hemialbumose or not, they 
give reactions showing a very close connexion with it, as pointed out by Vines.* The 
acid-albumin formed closely resembles Meissner’s parapeptone, and is hardly dis¬ 
tinguishable from Kuhne’s “ antialbumose.” According to the theory of proteolysis 
advanced by the latter observer, the first decomposition of such a proteicl as albumin 
or fibrin is the splitting of it into two groups of bodies, which he calls an “ anti-” and 
a “ hemi-” group, to each of which belongs an albumose and a peptone, and these two 
groups seem in their further decomposition to be independent of each other. Neither 
should, therefore, give rise to a member of the other group. Now parapeptone, closely 
resembling antialbumose, is a member of the “anti-” group, hemialbumose a member 
of the “ hemi-” group. Consequently, if Kuhne’s theory be true, hemialbumose, when 
present alone, should give rise at once to peptone, and antialbumose or parapeptone 
should not appear. 
The experiments I have narrated do not of course settle the point, for, to be quite 
sure, it is essential that no member of the “ anti-” group should be present. Though 
the albumoses I worked with were carefully prepared, it seems necessary that more 
should be learnt about their nature and reactions, and the best way of isolating them 
absolutely pure, before any dogmatic statement should be made. The experiments 
suggest an enquiry into the fate of such perfectly isolated albumoses when acted on 
by trypsin, pepsin, and the Lupin ferment. Such an enquiry should embrace the 
animal albumoses as prepared from fibrin, and the vegetable ones that can be obtained 
from the seeds of plants. 
Should such occurrence of parapeptone from pure albumoses be found, the point 
would have an important bearing on the question I raised just now as to the relative 
places of hemialbumose and parapeptone in the course of proteolysis. 
To these questions I hope to return at a subsequent j^eriod. 
* Op. cit. 
l 2 
