THE 
AMERICAN JOURNAL 
OF 
PHARMACY. 
JANUARY, 1840. 
ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 
ART. XXXVIIT. — OBSERVATIONS ON DEXTRINE AND 
DIASTASE. By William Procter, Jr. 
Few subjects of the same extent have created more sensa- 
tion, or have excited more difference of opinion, than amidon, 
and the substances which either constitute it proximately, or 
are derived from it by chemical agency. Ever since the dis- 
covery, by M. Raspail, that the grains of fecula were real 
organs, and not a homogeneous proximate principle, as was 
before supposed, numerous writers and experimenters have 
engaged in the question as to what is its chemical constitution? 
And so various have been the views entertained by many of 
these, that the task now undertaken, which is to give an out- 
line of the history of the subject, and make such experiments 
as may assist us in arriving at the truth, so far as it has yet 
been developed, is one that requires no little industry and 
perseverance. 
As early as December, 1825, M. Raspail announced, in the 
Jinnales des Sciences Naturelles* that fecula of potatoes 
was composed of two parts, one soluble, and the other insolu- 
ble in water. This naturalist stated that the last enveloped the 
♦The short historical notices of the several writers following, were ob- 
tained from a paper, by M.Guerin Varry, Ann. deChem. etd'Phys. tomelvi. 
vol. v. — no. iv. 34 
