346 SCIENCE PROGRESS. 



were not absorbed, in the ileum both salts rapidly dis- 

 appeared after their introduction. Again, that watery 

 solution of strychnia was absorbed fast from the intestine 

 but hardly at all from the stomach, though the addition of 

 alcohol at once caused it to be taken up in the latter 

 situation. 



Edkins found the absorption of water greatest in the 

 large intestine, hardly occurring at all in the stomach, and 

 taking place at a less rate in ileum than in large gut. 



Von Mering, in dogs with duodenal fistula, also found no 

 absorption of water in the stomach (confirmed by Gley and 

 Rondeau), though sugars, in accordance with the older 

 work of Funke, von Becker, Meade Smith, and more 

 recently Albertoni, were absorbed practically in ratio to 

 their concentration. 



Lannois and Lepine maintain that glucose is better 

 absorbed in the upper jejunum than in the ileum of the 

 dog, though this is doubted by Rohmann. 



Again, Olschanetzky demonstrated the rapidity of 

 absorption of watery solutions in the large gut, by 

 detecting iodine in the saliva of a man five minutes after 

 injection of potassium iodide into the rectum. 



The subject of the absorption of watery solutions can 

 hardly be left without a passing reference to the interesting- 

 chemical changes wrought by the intestinal cells upon some 

 of the substances undergoing absorption. 



Salvioli found that though peptone introduced into a 

 loop of gut with artificial circulation was absorbed, yet it 

 could not be recovered as such in the blood traversing the 

 intestinal wall, and Hofmeister had previously shown that it 

 disappeared somewhere in the mucous membrane. The 

 peptone is probably " regenerated ' to albumin, and since 

 the theory of Hofmeister that this function is performed by 

 leucocytes has been disproved by Heidenhain and Shore, we 

 are probably safe in concluding with Neumeister that it is 

 the columnar cells that effect this change during absorption. 



Again, since dextrose is the blood sugar, and maltose the 

 form in which sugar is presented to the intestinal epithe- 

 lium, a change must be wrought during absorption. The 



