ON DEXTRINE AND DIASTASE. 
275 
to germinate until the plumule has attained a little greater 
length than the grain, then dry it and reduce it to powder, 
and then dissolve it in warm water. The meal thus obtained 
is malt, and the solution, which is the saccharifying agent of 
the brewers, is the diastase, the zimome, and the legumine 
of others. The diastase, therefore, of Payen and Persoz, is 
only a mixture, more or less variable and complex, of sugar, 
gum, soluble substance of fecula, oil, salts, and finally gluten, 
to which belongs specially the saccharifying power. Again 
our author queries: 
" What is the amidine of Guerin?" 
" It is the soluble substance that we have discovered in 
fecula, that we have designated under the name gummy sub- 
stance, to which Biot has believed it his duty to give the 
name of dextrine, a name which Payen and Persoz have 
added to the soluble substance altered by the malt of beer, 
which they have since abandoned for that of amidone." This 
is incorrect, as they do not use diastase in the preparation of 
amidone. 
" What is the tegumentary amidin of Guerin?" 
" It is the assemblage of the envelopes of fecula, that we 
have designated under the name of teguments." 
u What is the soluble amidin of Guerin?" 
" It is the same, according to him, as tegumentary amidin, 
which amidineholdsin solution, and which accordingtothesame 
author is identical in all its relations with tegumentary ami- 
din; thus we have two substances which are identical, and dif- 
ferent, and one substance which changes its name according 
as it is dissolved or undissolved." 
"It is the interior tissue spoken of before, which from its ex- 
treme tenuity passes the filter, and appears dissolved, but 
which precipitates by time, that Guerin has given the name 
of soluble amidin." 
Perhaps it will give a better idea of these substances by pre- 
senting them in the following classification, viz.: 
