342 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



Results so con/ordant, seem to give to fluorine an importance which it 

 has not yet had in medicine and physiology. They set aside the opinion of 

 Befzelius that the presence of fluorine in the bones is purely accidental and 

 not in any case a necessary ingredient. If we wish other proof of the neces- 

 sity of reconsidering the conclusion of this illustrious chemist, we have them 

 in the following facts : that flourine exists in the bile, in the albumen of the 

 egg, in gelatine, in urine, in saliva, in hair ; in a word, the animal organiza- 

 tion is penetrated by fluorine and it may be expected to be found in all the 

 liquids which impregnate it. 



In view of these facts, which I have verified with exactness and all pos- 

 sible care, it is evident that fluorine plays in the blood and other liquids of 

 the system a physiological part. Its absence or its diminunition must consti- 

 tute of itself a state of disease, a species of chlorose from the absence of 

 fluorine, analogous to the chlorose from the absence of iron. This disease 

 may be detected no doubt by a chemical examination of the urine or saliva, 

 and may be met by a fluorid preparation. Thus far, my own experiments 

 have been made only on normal urine, from an adult ia perfect health or 

 from healthy children. 



EXPERIMENTS ON DIGESTION. 



An opportunity has been recently afforded to Dr. F. S. Smith, Professor 

 of the Institutes of Medicine in the medical department of Pennsylvania 

 College, of examining and re-experimenting upon St. Martin, the Canadian, 

 with a fistulous orifice in his stomach. This opening, which was occasioned 

 by a gun-shot wound at an early period of his life, has never healed, although 

 the surrounding wound cicatrized readily. The original experiments and 

 observations made on digestion, by the late Dr. Beaumont, by the aid of 

 this man, are familiar to every physiologist. The experiments undertaken 

 by Dr. Smith, were made with a view of settling several undetermined ques- 

 tions relating to the physiological action of the stomach, particularly that of 

 the nature of the acid contained in the gastric juice. It must be premised 

 that the analyses were made upon the fluids obtained from the stomach 

 while digestion was in progress. 



In every instance, and with all the kinds of food employed, the reaction 

 of the fluid of digestion was distinctly acid to litmus paper, while that of the 

 empty stomach, (as shown by the introduction of test papers through the 

 fistulous orifice), and of the fluid obtained by mechanical irritation, was as 

 distinctly neutral. The temperature of the stomach, while digestion was in 

 progress, was about 100 to 101 Fahr. When empty, about 98 to 99 Fahr. 



The general conclusions arrived at, by Dr. Smith, from a great number of 

 experiments, are as follows : 



1st. That the secretions of the stomach, when digesting, are invariably. 

 acid. 



2d. That the acid reaction was not due to the presence of phosphoric 

 acid. 



3d. That if hydrochloric acid was present, it was in very small quan- 

 tities. 



