Pineapple. Ananas sativa.
Pineapple. Ananas sativa Schult. f. (Fam. Bromeliaceae.)—Some years ago V. Marcano discovered that the juice of the ordinary pineapple has the power of digesting proteid vegetable and animal substances. R. II. Chittenden (Trans. Connecticut Academy, vol. viii, 1891) found that the fresh pineapple juice is a very constant and powerful digestant of albuminous matters; that the ferment is decidedly active in the presence of either acids or alkaline carbonates, but is most energetic in neutral solution; that the ferment is most active between 50° and 60° C. (122° and 140° F.); still digests at 30° C. (86° F.), but is destroyed at a temperature of 70° C. (158° F.); that the digestion takes place with rapidity; that the ferment, to which the name bromelin has been given, is more nearly related to trypsin than to pepsin, forming during its action not only proteoses and peptone, but also leucine and tyrosine.
E. V. Flack subjected pineapples grown in Cape Colony to analysis. He found in the fresh fruit: Crude fat 1.11 per cent., proteins 0.49 per cent., crude fiber 0.33 per cent., nitrogen-free extract 13.51 per cent., ash 0.70 per cent., silica, 0.069 per cent., lime 0.047 per cent., potash 0.358 per cent., phosphoric oxide 0.024 per cent., and moisture 83.86 per cent. (Chem. News, 1912, 99.)
