266 PLANT AND ORGANIC CHEMISTRY 
are probably formed from the complex albuminoids, and in 
fungus plants, which are especially rich in nitrogenous com¬ 
pounds, alkaloids are common. 
It has been generally held that alkaloids, with resins and 
some other compounds occurring in plants, are waste products, 
but this cannot be accepted as final. The researches 1 of Selmi, 
Gautier, Etard, Brieger, and others have broken down an 
imaginary distinction between plants and animals, which is of 
interest in this connection. They show that the production of 
alkaloids is a general function common to all living cells, 
whether they be bacteria or the cells of living animals. 
In the animals, with their excretory functions, these poisonous 
substances would be readily eliminated from the system; but it 
seems to me that in the absence of homologous organs in plants 
these compounds might be used again for the building up of 
tissue and prevent the accumulation of products detrimental to 
plants, and the recent investigations of Kellner 2 on the com¬ 
position of tea-leaves show that this view is not unlikely, for he 
states that the non-albuminoid nitrogen is almost wholly absent 
during the latter stages of growth, being found as theine; in the 
seeds the albumen has increased, but no theine is found; thus 
the author believes that positive proof is afforded that the alka¬ 
loids are a decomposition product of albumen, and capable of 
again forming albumen-like asparagine and glutamine. 
It wall not be possible in this place to enter more fully into 
the details of the chemical changes going on within the plant. 
My time will not allow a discussion of the changes of starch 
into sugar, and conversely, nor a review of the many steps in 
the transformation of protoplasm into the simpler products of 
cellulose, chlorophyll, and other substances; and it may be 
well to say that the ideas of physiologists in regard to these 
changes are unstable, since the acquisition of new facts seems 
to unsettle former opinions. But, to illustrate the revolution 
within the last few years from former views held in plant 
1 “Les Alcaloides d’Origine Animale,” par Dr. L. Huhouneng, Paris. 
Chem. News, December io, 1886. 
2 “ Landw. Versuch. Stat.,” 1886, 370, 380; Jour. Chem. Soc ., January, 
1887, p. 73. 
