Hydrolysis of the Protein of Linseed

Abstract

Every farmer who feeds stock finds the necessity for supplementing his home-grown foods, which are usually of a bulky nature containing large proportions of carbohydrate and fibre, by purchasing concentrated foods rich in nitrogen and fat. Experience shows that it is by no means a matter of indifference which concentrated food is selected to mix with any particular bulky food, and the trend of modern physiological chemistry seems to point to a definite explanation of this fact. According to modern views, the protein eaten by an animal is split normally by the digestive ferments into amino-acids and other crystalline nitrogenous substances. It is in the form of such comparatively simple substances that the animal absorbs its nitrogen from the alimentary canal, and from them that it builds up its own characteristic proteins.