Am.  Jour.  Phftrm. ) 
Nov.,  1885.  i 
Action  of  Papain. 
569 
The  supply  of  cotton  seed  is  obtained  from  several  countries  and 
may  be  said  to  be  inexhaustible.  The  Southern  States  of  North  Ame- 
rica contributing  the  largest  quantity,  which  may  be  measured  by  mil- 
lions of  tons,  a  great  proportion  of  which,  owing  to  its  bulk  and  dis- 
tance from  shipping  ports,  is  not  worth  the  expense  of  transit,  is 
burned  for  fuel  and  given  to  cattle  and  pigs  for  litter.  A  considerable 
quantity  is  used  in  the  manufacture  of  decorticated  cotton  cake  and 
oil,  both  of  which  find  a  ready  sale  in  this  country.  Very  little  of 
the  seed,  however,  in  its  natural  state,  finds  its  way  to  our  markets ; 
but  a  new  process  of  clearing  the  seed  is  being  prosecuted  with  consid- 
erable success,  and  it  is  fully  expected  that  in  a  few  years  a  large  quan- 
tity of  this  cleared  seed  will  be  shipped  to  this  country.  Egypt  may 
be  said  to  be  the  principal  source  from  which  this  country  derives  its 
supply,  the  quality  of  which  is  much  superior  to  that  grown  in  the 
American  States.  The  quantity  shipped  from  Egyptian  ports,  on  an 
average  of  years  past,  is  something  like  250,000  tons.  Improvements 
in  the  method  of  irrigation  are  said  to  have  increased  the  quantity  last 
year  by  50,000  tons,  and  it  is  reported  that  these  works  are  being 
improved  and  extended  this  season  with  equal  success.  India  and  the 
South  Sea  Islands  also  send  their  quota  of  seed  to  our  markets. — 
Phar.  Jour,  and  Trans.,  Sept.  19,  1885,  p.  250. 
REPORT  ON  THE  ACTION  OF  PAPAIN.^ 
By  Sidney  H.  C.  Martin,  M.D.  Loxd.,  B.Sc,  M.R.CP., 
Fellow  of  University  College^  London. 
In  a  previous  paper  ("Journal  of  Physiology,'^  Vol.  v,  No.  4)  I 
have  detailed  the  characters  and  action  on  coagulated  albumen  of  the 
proteolytic  ferment  obtained  from  the  papaw-juice  (Carica  Papaya), 
■extending  the  researches  of  Wurtz  and  Bouchut  and  others. 
Wurtz  had  described  the  ferment  as  a  proteid,  soluble  in  distilled 
water,  yet  precipitated  by  nitric  acid,  but  differing  from  a  native  albu- 
men (as  white  of  egg)  in  not  being  precipitated  by  boiling.  In  the 
material  I  used  in  my  former  experiments  (commercial  papain)  I  found 
two  proteids,  a  globulin  and  a  "  peptone and  I  could  not  come  to 
any  conclusion  as  to  which  of  these  bodies  was  the  ferment,  or,  to 
speak  more  correctly,  which  was  associated  with  it. 
'From  the  Physiological  Laboratory,  University  (College.  Reprinted 
from  the  "  British  Medical  Journal,"  July  25,  1885. 
