The investigations of Dragendorff and others have shown that the value of various stimulants like tobacco, coffee and tea, does not entirely depend on the amount of alkaloid or diureide but partly also on the joint action of all the constituents of those articles, and it is particularly the aromatic bodies which determine their commercial value. Various kinds of coffee, for example, of inferior commercial value contain considerably more caffeine than the costly Mocca beans. The highly prized Havana tobacco ranges lower than the Sumatra kinds in nicotine content, and the same conclusion with regard to cacao would probably be correct. In support of this view, attention may be directed to the following analyses performed by Wolfram.[67] Percentage of theobromine at 100° C. ================================+======================================== Description | % Theobromine % ================================+========+=========+=============+======= Caracas | | 1·63 | | 1·11 Guayaquil (of considerably less | | | | value than the first) | In the | 1·63 | In the | 0·97 Domingo | bean | 1·66 | shells | 0·56 Bahia | | 1·64 | | 0·71 Puerto Cabello (fine kind) | | 1·46 | | 0·81 Tabasco | | 1·34 | | 0·42 |————————+————————-+————————————-+——————— |Average | = 1·56% | | =0·76% Excluding the theobromine in the shells which are not used in the preparation of cacao, it will be seen from the above table that the Caracas bean, which is the finest and dearest, has an amount of theobromine which is only equal to, or even a little less, than that in the inferior beans from Guayaquil and Domingo. 5. ~Albumin.~ On the presence of albuminous bodies in the cacao bean, varying between 14-15 percent, depends to a great extent its nutritive value. The albumin in plants, unfortunately, is not to hand in a form suitable for direct absorption and assimilation in the animal organism, in fact, only a fraction of it is so available. Before considering the nutritive value of the albumin of the cacao bean it will be well to give attention to the general chemical and physical properties of albumin so far as a knowledge of them will assist in the elucidation of the subsequent matter. Albuminous bodies or proteins occur either dissolved in the sap of plants or in a solid in the protoplasm of plant cells; also in the form of granular deposits (Aleuron granules[68]). In cacao they are apparently present in the three different conditions.