Albumin

“ In the presence of an excess of starch, under the shape of bread, for example, vegetable albumin seems to be absorbed in about the same proportions as animal albumin.
If, in a flesh diet, animal albumins are always consumed nearly pure (lean meat containing hardly anything but albumin, besides a little fat, and an inferior quantity of glycogen) vegetable albumin is always, on the contrary, mixed with a number of other substances. ”

“ Since the fats and sugars, whose role is largely that of fuel, are interchangeable to a large extent, and since the vegetable fats are in every respect equivalent to the animal fats, the question of the adaptability of a vegetarian diet resolves itself into the concrete question whether plant albumin is the equivalent of animal albumin as tissue-builder. The chemical investigations into the constitution of albumins, carried out largely during the past two decades, have taught us that albumins are composed of simpler substances, termed amino-acids ”

“ It is apparently immaterial to the body of a hundred and fifty pounds whether in a properly selected and prepared diet the 2.2 ounces of albumin are exclusively of plant origin or partly derived from flesh. Since all cereals and vegetables contain albumin, a mixed diet always contains both plant and animal albumin, the ration of the latter of which would naturally run six to eight ounces of meat per day. ”

“ The presence of albumin in quantities greater than 0.5 gramme to the liter is of grave import, and denotes important change in the kidneys. Smaller quantities, or just a trace, may not be of great importance. Traces of albumin occur from a great number of causes, and are often due to the passage of toxic products through the kidney which this organ eliminates, as one of its main functions is to eliminate toxic products from the body. ”

“ When it was admitted by such physiologists as Voit, Rubner and their school that from 140 to 150 grammes of albumin in the minimum were daily necessaries in the human diet, a variation of a few units in the digestive power presented some importance. Nowadays the real utility of albumins is differently appreciated. ”

“ I would say, therefore, that the first albumin to be formed was in point of fact living matter, endued with the property in all its radicals of attracting especially homogeneous parts with great force and preference, in order to build them chemically into the molecule, and so grow indefinitely. On this view the living albumin need not have a constant molecular weight, because it is a huge molecule in an unceasing process of formation and decomposition, probably acting on the ordinary chemical molecules as a sun does on a small meteor. ”

“ Many types of houses may be constructed of brick of a common type; and so many kinds of albumin are formed of building-stones of common types; and from the common albumins of plants all the building-stones needed in the formation of the human albumins are to be obtained. It is clear therefore that it is quite immaterial to the human body whether it forms its tissue albumins from amino-acids derived from the digestion of animal or plant albumin, i. ”

“ Starting from the observation that the chemical properties of dead and living cells are totally different, and that certain substances, toxic to living protoplasm, have no effect whatever on eommon proteids, he has made a study of the formation of albumin in plant cells, and finds there is a labile or active albumin in living matter chemically unlike the ordinary albumin stored in seeds and eggs. ”

“ The carbon-compounds which we comprise under the chemical title of the albumins or proteids are the most remarkable, but also, unfortunately, the least known, of all bodies. The attempt to examine them closely encounters extraordinary difficulties, greater than in any other group of chemical compounds. Everybody is familiar with the appearance of ordinary albumin, from the transparent viscous albumin that surrounds the yolk in the hen's egg, and which becomes a white, opaque, and solid mass when it is cooked. ”

“ We may obtain colloidal precipitates exactly analogous to coagulated albumin by mixing a weak solution of chloride of calcium with potassium carbonate or tribasic phosphate. Like albumin this precipitate forms flakes, and is deposited slowly as a gelatinous colloidal mass. Like albumin also this calcic solution is coagulated by heat; a solution of a calcic salt of a volatile acid on heating forms a precipitate which has all the appearance of albumin coagulated by heat. ”

“ Transformation products of the albumins proper. Acid-albumins, alkali albuminates. Albumoses, peptones and peptides. Halogen-albumins, oxyprotein, oxyprotsulphonic acid, &c. Proteids. Nucleo-proteids. Haemoglobin and allied substances. Glyco-proteids, mucins, mucoids, helico-proteid. Albuminoids. Collagen. Keratin. Elastin. Fibroin. Spongin, &c. Amyloid. Albumoid. Colouring matters derived from albumin. Albumins proper.—Albumins (as classified above) are soluble in water, dilute acids and alkalies, and in saturated neutral salt solutions; they are coagulated by heat. ”

“ It may be necessary to add more albumin than the patient can actually take before glycosuria indication is reacted.... Once a medium amount of albumin is exceeded, say 70 to 80 grams, the glycosuria increases, no matter what the type of albumin is.”
My analysis also shows that the carbohydrates are not excluded from this food as claimed above.
40 PER CENT. GLUTEN BISCUIT
No analysis is supplied by the company, but this may be called properly a “40 per cent. Gluten Biscuit.” The company claims, however, that this is “Best for Diabetics,” which is not true. ”

“ At ten days the albumins are completely coagulated except at the surface, where there is no apparent growth; the odor is more putrefactive in nature, and the reaction of the medium is slightly acid. At three weeks the coagulated albumin splits up into fragments and appears to undergo a slow digestion, gas bubbles form in the lower portion of the culture, and the odor becomes distinctly putrefactive in character. The slow digestion of the albumin is probably due to a proteolytic enzyme elaborated by the bacillus. ”

“ The results of our examination are in accord with the results obtained by a member of the Council, who examined the product independently, and who writes:
“We have made some extended tests with Papayans Bell, and find that the tablets consist essentially of sodium bicarbonate and charcoal, with a little flavoring matter. We find no digesting power for starch or egg albumin. At any rate, no appreciable change follows in the albumin in three hours, and no conversion to sugar in the same time, or change of starch to a point where the iodin reaction is weakened. ”

“ Some investigators hold that the soaps may become combined with albumin, and that on becoming incorporated with the cytoplasm they can no longer be distinguished as fat. If from some cause the cell be damaged in such a way as to produce disintegration of the cytoplasm, there will be a breaking down of that combination, so that the fat will be set free from the complex protein molecule in which it was combined as a soap-albumin, and will become demonstrable by the usual methods as small droplets of oil. ”

“ This substance is called vegetable albumin.
Besides the albumin, the gluten, and the starch, other substances about which this rough method of analysis gives us no information, are contained in the wheat grain. For example, there is woody matter or cellulose, and a certain quantity of sugar and fat. It would be possible to obtain a substance similar to albumin, starch, saccharine, and fatty matters, and cellulose, by treating the stem, leaves, and root in a similar fashion, but the cellulose would be in far larger proportion. ”

“ The fats are the least digestible foods, but they produce the greatest number of calories.
The proportion of the different elements in the food should be determined by the amount of albumin, which constitutes the real food element. Albumin is of both vegetable and animal origin. Its animal forms are more nutritious, more easily digestible, and products more calories than the vegetable forms. The foods which produce animal-albumin are milk, eggs, and meats. Vegetables themselves furnish what is known as vegetable-albumin. ”

“ Its specific gravity ranges between 1008 and 1018; the mineral salts present are the same and in about the same proportion as those of blood, nor do they vary with the position of the exudation. The quantity of albumin, however, depends much on the position of the fluid, and slightly on the underlying disease. In oedema the fluid contains only traces, whereas a pleural or peritoneal effusion is always highly albuminous. Also an effusion due to heart disease contains more albumin than one due to kidney disease. ”

“ Blend as for "Albuminized Milk," serve plain or add lemon juice and sugar to taste. If set on ice to keep cool, shake before serving. Two teaspoons of Sanatogen added 30 calories.
[232]
Albumin Water (for infants) ,
13 Calories
Albumin water is utilized chiefly in cases of acute stomach and intestinal disorders in which some nutritious and easily assimilated food is needed; albumin water is then very useful. The white of one egg is dissolved in eight ounces or a pint of water which has been boiled and cooled. ”

“ The total exclusion of proteids especially would produce, after a certain time, a considerable wasting of the body tissues and certain death. According to Voith, it is necessary to take about 100 grammes of albumin a day if we want to avoid waste of body tissue. Proteid food cannot be replaced by either of the other two groups of food. ”

“ All the nitrogenous substances, animal and vegetable, are resolvable into albuminose in the process of digestion, but not with the same facility in every case. Some of them are digested more easily by some persons than by others; and, besides, there may be differences in the albuminose itself which are recognizable by chemical means. In your own case, lean meat may be more digestible than any other nitrogenous compound, and the albuminose into which it is converted may be more easily assimilated. ”

“ In the treatment of the anæmic form of obesity, to which chlorotic patients of the better classes are subject, in consequence of sedentary habits and overfeeding, the diet must be so arranged that albumins predominate, whilst carbohydrates should be given sparingly, and as little fat as possible. As the average quantities of the food elements required in such cases, I suggest, 200 grammes of albumin, 12 grammes of fat, and 100 grammes of carbohydrate. ”

“ Now, if we were to confine ourselves to wheaten bread, we should be obliged to eat in order to obtain our daily supply of albuminoids, or ‘flesh-formers,’ nearly 4 lb.—an amount that would give us nearly twice as much of the starchy matters which should accompany the albuminoids—or, in other words, it would supply not more than the necessary daily allowance of nitrogen, but almost twice the necessary daily allowance of carbon. ”

“ He showed that true albumins penetrate unchanged the intestinal mucous membrane of new-born foals, calves, and smaller laboratory animals, and that they produce the same action on the organism as when they are injected directly into the circulation. In adult animals of all species, on the contrary, the true albumins must first be digested into peptones before they can pass through the mucous membrane. The anti-diphtheria serum and the anti-tetanus serum contain curative substances in the form of true albumins. ”

“ This analysis of albuminous matter at first requires great precautions. The chemist finds himself in the presence of architecture of a very subtle kind. The molecule of albumin is a complex edifice which has used up several thousand atoms. ”

“ Nothing that lives and grows is without nitrogen, and so we find it in large or small amounts in all plants as well as all animals. Our supplies of albuminoids, or flesh-formers, are obtained from lean meat, fish, poultry, game, as milk curd or cheese, eggs, gluten in flour, fibrine in oats, and in beans, peas and lentils. Albumen is found in many other foods besides eggs. The blood of many animals contains it, and we have presently to speak of albumen in meat. In most vegetable juices and in many seeds and nuts we find it also. ”

“ This is a valuable test for routine work. It is simple, sufficiently accurate for clinical purposes, and has practically no fallacies. Addition of the salt solution, by raising the specific gravity, prevents precipitation of mucin. Albumose may produce a white cloud which disappears upon boiling and reappears upon cooling.
(4) Heat and Nitric Acid Test.—This is one of the oldest of the albumin tests, and, if properly carried out, one of the best. Boil a small quantity of filtered urine in a test-tube and add about one-twentieth its volume of concentrated nitric [p. 74] acid. ”

“ The hypothesis explains also that necessity for albuminoids in the food of the laboring animal which practical experience has shown to exist, as well as the fact that there is no greater excretion of nitrogen during work than during rest; the proteine serves as the basis for the alternate synthesis and analysis which constitute what might be called the atomic mechanism of muscular activity without itself being destroyed. ”

“ A morbid condition in which albumin is present in the urine.
ALBUMOSE
Al"bu*mose`, n. Etym: [From albumin.] (Chem.)
Defn: A compound or class of compounds formed from albumin by dilute acids or by an acid solution of pepsin. Used also in combination, as antialbumose, hemialbumose.
ALBURN
Al"burn, n. Etym: [L. alburnus, fr. L. albus white. Cf. Auburn.]
(Zoöl.)
Defn: The bleak, a small European fish having scales of a peculiarly silvery color which are used in making artificial pearls. ”