PANCREATIC JUICE AND DIET. 48 



been distributed over different hours of the digestion period. We 

 resolved, therefore, in order to give the character of absolute certainty 

 to our results, to compare the fermentative properties of the juice 

 secreted every hour over the whole twenty-four hours. This prolonged 

 experiment was carried out by Dr. Jablonski. 



A dog which had long been fed on flesh, and whose pancreatic juice 

 worked very actively on proteid, was placed on a milk and bread diet. 

 The proteid-digesting power of the juice sank continuously, so far as one 

 could conclude from the experiments of the first six hours after the feed- 

 ing. On the thirtieth day of this diet the whole juice secreted in twenty- 

 four hours was collected. Its power of digesting proteid, according to 

 Mett was exactly 4 mm. Ten days later the experiment was repeated , 

 when the digestive power of the twenty-four hours' juice had declined 

 to 2'25. A third trial was made after the lapse of a further twelve 

 days, which gave a digesting power of 1-25 mm. In the fourth and 

 last experiment carried out twenty-four days later, the digestive power 

 for proteid was absolutely nil. 



The starch ferment at the beginning steadily increased ; later, 

 however, it showed irregular fluctuations, with a slight tendency to 

 fall. The latter circumstance must, however, be further investigated. 



The result of the experiment, so far as concerns the proteid-digesting 

 ferment, leaves nothing to be desired. It is naturally of importance, 

 however, to investigate the behaviour of the other ferments with equal 

 exactness. 



When, under the influence of a given diet, this or that condition of 

 the pancreas had been established in our experiment animals in charac- 

 teristic form, we were able, by altering the feeding, to reverse it several 

 times in one and the same animal. This shuts out all suspicion that 

 we were dealing with a spontaneous and inevitable alteration of the 

 glands, such as might have arisen from the effects of the operation or 

 other pathological condition. 



Since the food so powerfully affects the nature of the work of the 

 glands, is it not possible that a permanent type of pancreatic activity 

 could be produced under the influence of long-standing natural condi- 

 tions of life, or from the effects of a long-continued form of diet main- 

 tained perhaps throughout the whole period of life, such, for example, 

 as obtains in the case of pedigree dogs ? It appears to me that our 

 experimental material gives some indications in this direction. Although 

 our laboratory dogs live and are fed under the same conditions, neverr 

 theless the pancreatic juice of the different animals often differs very 

 essentially in the amount of ferment. In harmony with the same 

 thing, a change of diet in the case of one clog may very soon manifest 

 itself in altered properties of the juice, while, in that of another, the 



