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from sprouted barley. These zymases, he found, possessed
generally the property of rapidly transforming cane-sugar
into glucose, or grape-sugar. He discovered the anthrozyma
in flowers, the morozyma in the white mulberry and the
nephrozyma in the kidney of animals. Finally, the following
year, 1 866, he gave the name, microzyma, 1 to his crowning
discovery, which to him was the basic explanation of the
whole question and which had not yet been made ap-
parent to him when he immortalised his early experiments
in his Memoir of 1857; but this we must leave for future
consideration. We have here given these dates to show
how long ago Professor Bechamp made a complete
discovery of the nitrogenous substance formed in the yeast
cell to which he gave the name of zymase.
Apart from the justice of giving credit where credit is
due, for the mere sake of historical accuracy it is desirable
that his own discovery should be publicly accredited to
2
him. Instead, in the Encyclopedia Britannica we find, in the
article on "Fermentation" by Julian Levett Baker, F.I.C.,
that it is stated that "In 1897 Biichner submitted yeast to
great pressure and isolated a nitrogenous substance,
enzymic in character, which he termed zymase." Again,
3
we take up A Manual of Bacteriology, by R. Tanner Hew-
lett, M.D., F.R.C.P., D.P.H. (Lond.), F.R.M.S., and we
—
read: "Until 1897 no enzyme had been obtained which
would carry out this change (alcoholic fermentation); it
only occurred when the living yeast-cells were present,
but in that year Biichner, by grinding up the living yeast-
cells, obtained a juice which decomposed dextrose with
the formation of alcohol and carbonic acid. This 'zymase'
Biichner claimed to be the alcoholic enzyme of yeast."
Yet once more, Professor and Mrs. Frankland, in their
book, Pasteur* while apologising for certain of the latter'
—
erroneous views, write as follows: "In the present year
1
Comptes Rendus de VAcadimie des Sciences, 63, p. 451.
2
Eleventh Edition.
3
Sixth Edition, p. 36.
See Chapter IX.
4