CHEMICAL LABILITY. 
15 
in mind, that these are the most complicated combinations of 
all, and that up to the present day our slow inductive methods 
have not yet elucidated their chemical structure, although 
numerous facts relating to the decompositions under different 
circumstances have been discovered within the last ten years, 
especially by Maly, Nencki , Drechsel, E. Schulze. It was there¬ 
fore not possible to look here for an explanation in regard to the 
constitution of the active albumen or proteids. A more pro¬ 
mising way seemed to me to study at first the formation of 
albuminous substances within the life-plant, as it was most 
probable, that the active proteids were products of direct 
synthesis. In this regard an important observation made at 
first by Th. H artig and later studied by Borodin, Pfeffer, Kellner 
and especially by E. Schulze put us upon the right track : the 
observation that in many cases of albuminous decompositions in 
plants asparagin is formed in surprisingly large quantities, and 
that this asparagin quickly disappears again in the formation 
of new proteids, without any intermediate product being dis¬ 
cernible. (See Chapt. V.). 
This led me to the conclusion, that albumen is formed by 
a rapidly proceeding condensation- process. But in order to 
render this possible, the asparagin had to be transformed first 
into an aldehyde, the aldehyde of aspartic acid, from which 
by condensation and reduction substances of the composition of 
albuminous matter could be formed, as may be expressed by the 
following equations : 
I. 3 (C 4 H 7 N 0 2 ) = C I2 H I7 N 3 0 4 + 2 H 2 0 
II. 6 (C I3 H I7 N 3 0 4 ) + i2H + H 2 S=:C 72 H Il2 N l8 S 0 22 + 2 H 2 0 
Simplest expression for albumen 
If the condensation were to take place between the alde- 
hyde-and methylengroups and the hydrogen indicated in the 
equation II were to be used for reduction of 12 aldehydegroups, 
the final product would still contain 12 aldehyde-and 18 amidogroups 
and would therefore be of an extraordinary lability. l) The 
energetic motions in such a product could bring on oxydative 
processes (see Chapt. VI.), in which easily oxydisable products 
as sugar, lecithin, could participate. This process might lead in 
1) O. Loew . Pflüg. Arch. Vol. 22, p. 503. 
