Am.  Jour.  Pharm, ) 
Dec,  1883.  J 
Diastatic  le^ment  of  Bacteria. 
623 
DIASTATIC  FERMENT  OF  BACTERIA. 
By  J.  WORTMANN. 
Recent  investigations  have  conclusively  established  the  universal 
occurrence  of  diastatic  ferments  in  different  parts  of  plants,  and  have 
thrown  a  new  light  on  the  processes  of  nutrition  and  fermentation. 
According  to  earlier  observations,  the  presence  of  diastase  in  the 
plant  was  limited  to  germinating  wheat  or  barley,  and  knowledge  in 
regard  of  its  wider  diffusion  has  been  advanced  by  the  recent  works 
of  Gorup-Besanez,  Will,  Kranch,  and  especially  Baranetzky.  The 
researches  of  Musculus,  E.  Schulze,  O'Sullivan,  and  others,  have 
afforded  an  insight  into  the  quantitative  relations  and  the  modifying 
external  factors  of  temperature  and  acidity  concerned  in  the  action  of 
diastase  in  the  transformation  of  starch  into  glucose. 
Having  in  view  the  action  of  bacteria  as  causes  of  putrefaction  or 
fermentation  in  which  the  destruction  of  the  putresciole  or  fermen- 
tescible  body  is  accomplished  by  the  appropriation  for  the  purpose  of 
nutrition  by  the  bacteria  of  constituent  nitrogen  or  carbon,  the  question 
may  be  asked — can  bacteria  also  obtain  their  carbon  from  starch,  just 
as  by  the  researches  of  Pasteur  and  Cohn  they  have  been  proved  to  be 
€apable  of  obtaining  it,  not  only  from  sugar  but  from  ammonium 
tartrate?  Are  bacteria,  by  the  secretion  of  a  starch-transforming 
ferment  analogous  to  diastase,  or  in  any  other  but  not  clearly  defined 
way,  capable  of  transforming  starch  into  soluble,  diffusible,  and  nutrient 
combinations?  Notwithstanding  the  numerous  investigations  into  the 
chemical  and  physiological  relations  of  bacteria,  very  little  has  been 
made  out  in  regard  to  their  action  on  starch — a  circumstance  from 
which  it  may  be  presumed  that  the  solution  of  starch  by  bacteria  can 
be  effected  only  in  certain  instances.  In  his  work,  "  Ueber  die  niederen 
Pilze,^^  Naegeli  refers  to  the  secretion  by  these  organisms  of  a  special 
energetic  ferment  capable  of  changing  milk-  sugar  into  fermentescible 
sugar,  starch  and  cellulose  into  glucose,  and  of  dissolving  coagulated 
albumin  and  other  albuminates,  and  Sachsse  alludes  to  the  circumstance 
of  starch  solution  undergoing  no  change  so  long  as  it  is  protected  from 
the  influence  of  organic  germs  by  which  otherwise  it  quickly  under- 
goes transformation. 
Some  experiments,  made  by  the  author  in  the  summer  of  1881  with 
milky  juices,  led  him  to  believe  that  certain  appearances  of  corrosion 
exhibited  by  the  starch  granules  present  must  be  due  to  the  action  of 
