42 
Editorial. 
f  Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
1     January,  1900. 
EDITORIAL. 
ENZYMIC  AND  SYMBIOTIC  FERMENTATION. 
While  there  have  been  a  number  of  theories  to  explain  fermentative  changes, 
viz.:  (i)  The  Acid  Theory  (of  Pliny);  (2)  Contact  Theory  (Berzelius)  ;  (3) 
Mechanical  or  Physical  Theor}^  (Stahl)-;  (4)  Chemical  Theory  (Tromsdorff  )  ; 
(5)  Galvanic  Theory  (Schweiger),  and  (6)  Vital,  Germ  or  Physiological  Theory 
(Pasteur);  it  may  be  said  that  there  have  been  but  two  views  which  have  been  to 
any  great  extent  seriously  considered  in  recent  years,  viz.,  the  mechanical  theory 
of  which  Liebig  was  the  champion,  and  the  vital  theory  of  Pasteur,  who  discovered 
that  fermentation  is  the  result  of  the  action  of  life  without  air  (  "  La  fermenta- 
tion est  la  consequence  de  la  vie  sans  air  ").  It  is  a  matter  of  common  knowl- 
edge that  the  theory  of  L,iebig  was  proven,  by  the  results  of  the  experiments  of 
Pasteur,  to  be  an  error  ;  and  it  may  be  said  that  these  results  at  the  same  time 
illuminated  the  subject  of  the  generation  of  life  for  the  biological  world  and, 
furthermore,  laid  the  foundation  stones  of  the  science  of  bacteriology. 
Within  the  past  few  years  the  labors  of  E.  Biichner  have  given  rise  to  a  new 
theory,  known  as  the  enzyme  theory  of  fermentation.  He  has  isolated  an 
enzyme  or  ferment  (zymase)  from  yeast  with  which  alcoholic  fermentation 
apparently  can  be  produced.  H.  Abeles,  however,  took  the  position,  a  little 
more  than  a  year  ago,  that  the  expressed  juice  from  yeast  plants  with  which 
Biichner  worked  reall}T  contained  living  fragments  of  the  protoplasm  of  the  yeast 
cell,  and  endeavored  to  explain  the  fermentative  changes  as  due  to  this  living 
plasma.  In  reply  to  Abeles,  Biichner  has  shown  rather  conclusively  in  a  number 
of  experiments  that  the  plasma  hypothesis  of  the  former  is  without  foundation. 
More  recently,  A.  Wroblewski,  of  Cracow,  has  made  some  studies  on  yeast  juice 
by  means  of  fractional  coagulation,  and  he  assumes  that  the  enzyme  is  in  that 
portion  of  the  j^east  which  coagulates  at  41°.  J.  Reynolds  Green  also  confirms 
the  researches  of  Biichner,  and  has  shown  that  there  is  a  ferment  in  the  yeast 
cell  which  can  be  extracted  and  which  will  induce  the  alcoholic  fermentation 
of  sugar.  These  results  of  Biichner  and  others  are  extremely  inte:esting,  in 
that  they  disprove  the  two  most  important  and  commonly  accepted  points  in 
the  Theorie  der  Gahrung  (1879)  of  Nageli.  He  distinguished  the  higher  plants 
that  produce  distinctive  ferment  principles  from  the  lower  in  which  no  such 
distinct  principles  had  been  discovered,  and  said  of  the  latter  "  (1)  that  they 
had  not  yielded  to  any  extracting  medium  anything  that  could  effect  fermen- 
tation in  the  absence  of  cells,  and  (2)  that  the  products  of  their  action  are, 
'  without  exception,  less  nutritious  compounds,'  and  that  they  destroy  the  most 
nutritious  substances.  It  was  commonly  accepted  that,  inasmuch  as  all  of  the  im- 
portant functions  of  the  individual  representing  the  unicellular  plant  were  per- 
formed by  the  protoplasm  of  a  single  cell,  the  division  of  labor  that  can 
take  place  in  a  more  differentiated  structure  is  here  impossible."1  Kriitsen- 
berg,  in  some  experiments  (Vergleichend-physiologische  Vortrage,  Heidelberg), 
has  apparently  shown  that  "in  the  simplest  forms  the  process  of  digestion  is 
an  intracellular  one,  not  dependent  on  enzymes,  but  inherent  in  the  proto- 
plasm itself."  While  we  cannot,  in  some  instances  at  the  present,  deny  the 
fermentative  power  of  protoplasm,  it  has  been  shown  by  Biichner  that  in  the  so- 
called  organized  ferments  unorganized  fermentative  principles  are  also  present 
1  Greene,  in  Annals  of  Botany,  1893,  p.  133. 
