106 



THE WORK OF THE DIGESTIVE GLANDS. 



increased amount of fat. If the fat is to be credited at all with the 

 low digestive power of " milk juice," that secreted upon cream .should be 

 still weaker. This, as a matter of fact, is the case. The following 

 table gives a comparison of the secretion with milk and with cream 

 (Dr. Lobassoff). 



In addition to the above, we have recently compared the effects of 

 milk by itself, with those of the same fluid when the fat has been 

 removed by filtration (unpublished experiments of Dr. Wolkowitsch). 

 The results were that the latter produced a greater quantity of juice in 

 the earlier hours, with a more vigorous rate of flow for the whole 

 secretion. 



We have, therefore, discovered two reasons for the slow progress of 

 the secretion after the taking of milk, and for the poverty of the 

 " milk juice " in ferment, viz., the weak psychic effect and the inhibitory 

 influence of the fat. 



At this stage of my lectures I think it very desirable to discuss 

 two important questions which have long been kept waiting. The 

 one has already been raised in the first lecture, the other at the 

 beginning of to-day's. The first concerns the right of our small 

 stomach to be taken as representative of the large one in all secretory 

 relationships, or, as Dr. Chigin has put it in his article, to serve as 

 mirror for the activity of the large one. The second question is, 

 whether it may be accepted as a fact that the different substances 

 which excite a flow of gastric juice, or effect an enduring alteration of 

 the secretion, act on the mucous membrane of the alimentary tract 

 that is to say, influence the peripheral terminations of its centripetal 

 nerves. These questions are intimately connected with each other, and 

 must be simultaneously dealt with at the present juncture. I begin 

 with the former. 



