184 



OF FOOD, AND THE DIGESTIVE PROCESS. 



Huge 1 has carefully examined the Gases of the large intestine in the 

 Human subject after different kinds of food, and finds their composition 

 tolerably constant, Nitrogen Gas preponderating after the use of flesh, 

 Hydroo-en after milk, and Carburetted Hydrogen after Vegetable (Legu- 

 minous) diet. Though the gases were sometimes offensive, they never gave 

 more than a trace of Sulphuretted Hydrogen. The following table includes 

 his chief results : 



Composition of the Gases of the Large Intestine after the use 



131. Although it cannot be stated with certainty what is the precise por- 

 tion of the Glandular apparatus connected with the Intestinal canal, which 

 is concerned in the elimination of that peculiarly putrescent matter, which 

 gives to the fteces their characteristic odor, yet it may be stated, almost with 

 certainty, that this matter is not derived from the decomposition of the un- 

 digested residue of the food. For, in the first place, this residue consists of 

 matters whose very inaptitude for undergoing chemical change is the source of 

 their iudigestibility ; and it is scarcely possible, therefore, to imagine that in 

 so short a period they should acquire a character so peculiarly offensive. But, 

 further, we observe that fecal matter is still discharged, even in considerable 

 quantities, long after the intestinal tube has been completely emptied of its 

 alimentary contents. We see this in the course of many diseases, when food 

 is not taken for several days, during which time the bowels have been com- 

 pletely emptied of their previous contents by repeated evacuations. Some- 

 times" a copious flux of putrescent matter continues to take place sponta- 

 neously ; whilst it is often produced by the agency of purgative medicine. 

 "The colliquative diarrhoea," which frequently comes on at the close of ex- 

 hausting diseases, and which usually precedes death by starvation, appears 

 to depend, not so much upon a disordered state of the secreting organs them- 

 selves, as upon the general disintegration of the solids of the body, which 

 calls them into extraordinary activity for the purpose of separating the de- 

 composing matter which has accumulated in it to a most unusual amount. 

 These views (which have long been taught by the Author) derive a remark- 

 able confirmation from the experiments of Prof. Liebig on the production of 

 artificial fecal matter. For he has ascertained that if albuminous or gelat- 

 inous compounds be heated with solid hydrate of potash, and the heat be 

 continued until the greater part or the whole of the nitrogen has been dissi- 

 pated as ammonia, and hydrogen begins to be given off, the residue, when 

 supersaturated with dilute sulphuric acid, and distilled, yields a liquid con- 

 taining acetic and butyric acids, and possessing in a very intense degree the 

 peculiar and characteristic odor of human faces. The odor varies accord- 



1 Boitr;i<n> z.ur Konntniss der Darrn-Gase, SUzungsbericht d. k. Akad. d. Wissen- 

 schaften (Wien), 1862, p. 729. 



