Abstract
IN a recent paper, Hopkins, Jelinek and Harrison1 have studied the hydrolysis of potato amylose to maltose with the enzyme, beta amylase. These workers found that the hydrolysis proceeds at a continually diminishing rate and that it is never a first-order reaction as has been claimed by some workers2,3. From a study of the products at various stages of the hydrolysis, the theory advanced to explain the facts is that the longer chains of amylose are hydrolysed at a faster rate than short chains and that the longer chains are attacked first. This would account for a continually diminishing rate of hydrolysis as the reaction proceeds and as the length of the chains gradually becomes shorter. From data presented in a recent paper4, and from other considerations which were briefly mentioned at that time, we have presented a rather different view to explain similar observations.
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