Albumen or albumin is a substance, or rather group of substances, so named from the Latin for the white of an egg (albus) , which is one of its most abundant known forms. It may be taken as the type of the protein compounds or the nitrogenous class of food stuffs. One variety enters largely into the composition of the animal fluids and solids, is coagulable by heat at and above 160 degrees, and is composed of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen, with a little sulphur. It abounds in the serum of the blood, the vitreous and crystalline humours of the eye, the fluid of dropsy, the substance called coagulable lymph, in nutritive matters, the juice of flesh, etc. The blood contains about seven percent of albumen. Another variety called vegetable albumen exists in most vegetable juices and many seeds, and has nearly the same composition and properties as egg albumen. When albumen coagulates in any fluid it readily encloses any substances that may be suspended in the fluid. Hence it is used to clarify syrupy liquors. In cookery white of eggs is employed for clarifying, but in large operations like sugar-refining the serum of blood is used. From its being coagulable by various salts, and especially by corrosive sublimate, with which it forms an insoluble compound, white of egg is a convenient antidote in cases of poisoning by that substance. With lime it forms a cement to mend broken ware.
In botany the name albumen is given to the farinaceous matter which surrounds the embryo, the term in this case having no reference to chemical composition. It constitutes the meat of the cocoa-nut, the flour or meal of cereals, the roasted part of coffee, etc. Research Albumen
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Abbreviations
SciTech
Research Albumen
