RESEARCHES ON EMULSINE. 
353 
appearance when it is first washed with strong spirit, and 
then with absolute alcohol, until every trace of water has 
been removed, and then dried in vacuo under sulphuric 
acid. It then forms a milk-white, very friable mass, which 
is perfectly opake, without lustre, and far more soluble than 
the emulsine prepared according to other methods. About 
6 grms. of emulsine was obtained from a pound of almonds 
after the oil had been expressed. If larger quantities are 
employed, the time required for washing and filtration is 
considerably lengthened, and a more or less colored prepa- 
ration is obtained. If it is dried over sulphuric acid in a 
recipient filled with air, it becomes transparent, gummy and 
colored by the absorption of water. 
Certain substances prevent the reaction of emulsine with 
amygdaline, for instance alcohol and acetic acid. The 
property of being precipitated by alcohol is not peculiar to 
the emulsine, but is owing to the phosphates which it con- 
tains in solution, and with which it so intimately combined 
that it was impossible to separate the emulsine without de» 
stroying it. 
Emulsine has an acid reaction. After it has been wash- 
ed with alcohol until what passes through is perfectly neu- 
tral, the moist emulsine strongly reddens bluelitmus-paper. 
Emulsine which has been dried and again dissolved is like- 
wise acid, and this acid property it owes to the presence of 
phosphates in the almond emulsion. An emulsion f al- 
monds, which was neutralized with lime-water and filtered, 
distinctly furnished the reaction with amygdaline ; but the 
filtered liquid was not precipitated by alcohol, and it con- 
tained not a trace of phosphoric acid. Ammonia acts in the 
same manner. The liquid, it is true, become sturbid on the 
addition of alcohol ; but the turbidness cannot be removed 
by filtration, and is deposited only after some days as a 
scarcely perceptible precipitate. 
When the neutralized liquid is set aside at the ordinary 
temperature, it begins in the course of a few days to be de- 
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