2 6o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



rounding the mouth, but the pancreas, which is concerned in a later 

 stage of digestion, is a gland so similar to the salivary glands that in 

 ordinary cookery both are dressed and served as " sweetbreads," and 

 its secretion, the pancreatic juice, is a liquid closely resembling saliva 

 and containing a similar diastase, or substance that converts starch 

 into dextrine, and f rom dextrine to sugar. Lehmann says, " It is now 

 indubitably established that the pancreatic juice possesses this sugar- 

 forming power in a far higher degree than the saliva." Besides this 

 there is another sugar-forming secretion, the " intestinal juice," which 

 assists the graminivorous animals in the digestion of raw grain. This 

 being the case, we should, by exercising our privilege as cooking ani- 

 mals, be able to assist the digestive functions of the saliva and the 

 pancreatic and intestinal secretion, just as we help our teeth in the 

 tlour-mill ; the means of doing this is offered by the diastase of malt. 



In accordance with this reasoning I have made some experiments 

 on a variety of our common vegetable foods, by simply raising them (in 

 contact with water) to the temperature most favorable to the convert- 

 ing action of diastase) 140 to 150 Fahr.), and then adding a little 

 malt-extract or malt-flour. This extract may be purchased ready made 

 or may be prepared by soaking crushed or ground malt in warm water, 

 leaving it for an hour or two, or longer, and then pressing out the 

 liquid. 



I find that oatmeal-porridge, when thus treated with malt or malt- 

 extract, is thinned by the conversion of the bulk of its insoluble starch 

 into soluble dextrine ; that boiled rice is similarly thinned ; that a 

 stiff jelly of arrowroot is at once rendered watery, and its conversion 

 into dextrine is demonstrated by its altered action on a solution of 

 iodine. Instead of instantly striking a blue-black color on admixture, 

 only a slight brownish tinge is displayed, and not even this when the 

 temperature has been carefully maintained. 



Sago and tapioca are similarly changed, but not so completely as 

 arrowroot. This is evidently because they contain a little nitrogenous 

 matter and cellulose, which, when stirred, give a milkiness to the other- 

 wise clear and limpid solution of dextrine. 



Pease-pudding when thus treated behaves very instructively. In- 

 stead of remaining as a fairly uniform paste, it partially separates into 

 paste and clear liquid, the paste being the cellulose and vegetable 

 casein, the liquid a solution of the dextrine or converted starch. Tur- 

 nips, carrots, potatoes, etc., behave similarly, the general results show- 

 ing that, so far as the starch is concerned, there is no practical difficulty 

 in obtaining a practically sufficient amount of conversion of the starch 

 into dextrine by means of a very small quantity of maltose. 



" Hasty-pudding," made of boiled flour, is similarly altered ; gener- 

 ally speaking, the degree of visible alterations is proportionate to the 

 amount of starch, but, the smaller the proportion and the greater that 

 of cellulose, the more slowly the change occurs. 



