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THE SOLUBLE FERMENT 73

resulted a solution and an insoluble residue. This last was
coagulated albumen, which came from the yeast in
solution, but was rendered insoluble by the coagulating
action of the alcohol.
"As to that portion of the precipitate which has been
dissolved, alcohol can precipitate it again," says Bechamp. 1
"This new precipitate is to beer-yeast what diastase is to
sprouted barley or synaptase to almonds; it is the principle
that in the yeast effects the inversion of the cane-sugar. If
some of it is dissolved in water, cane-sugar added and
the solution kept for several minutes in the water bath at
40 , the alkaline copper tartrate proves that the sugar has
been inverted. The action is also very rapid at the
ordinary temperature, but slower in proportion to a lesser
amount of the active product; which explains the slow-
ness of the reactions obtained with certain moulds that I
could only utilise in small quantity. All this proves that
the cause of the inversion of the sugar is pre-formed in the
moulds and in the yeast, and as the active matter, when
isolated, acts in the absence of acid, this shows that I was
right in allying it to diastase."
It was after Professor Bechamp had established these
facts that he gave a name to this active matter. He called
it zymase, from the Greek, C^v, ferment. The word,
applied by him at first to the active matter of yeast and of
moulds, has become a generic term. Later on, he specially
designated the zymases of yeast and of moulds by the
name of zythozymase.
Bechamp 's first public employment of the name
"zymase" for soluble ferments was in a Memoir on Fer-
mentation by Organised Ferments, which he read before the
2
Academy of Science on the 4th of April, 1864.
The following year, he resumed the subject and showed
3
that there were zymases in microzoaires and microphytes,
which he isolated, as Payen and Persoz isolated the diastase
1
Les Microzymas, p. 72.
2
Comptes Rendus 58, p. 601.
3
C. R. 59, p. 496.