140 OLEOMARGARINE. 



hand, rancid butter is probably more readily digested than fresh and 

 is not poisonous, the repugnance to it being simply one of taste, as will 

 be seen from the following, taken from Roberts by Fothergill: 



Ui The different behavior of two specimens of the same oil, one 

 perfectly neutral and the other containing a little free fatty acid, is 

 exceedingly striking. I have here before me two specimens of cod-liver 

 oil; one of them is a fine and pure pale oil, such as is usually dispensed 

 by the better class of chemists, the other is the brown oil sent out under 

 the name of De Jongh. I put a few drops of each of those into two 

 beakers, and pour on them some of this solution, which contains 2 per 

 cent of bicarbonate of soda. The pale oil, you see, is not in the least 

 emulsified; it rises to the top of the water in large, clear globules; the 

 brown oil, on the contrary, yields at once a milky emulsion. The pale 

 oil is a neutral oil, and yields no acid to water when agitated with it in 

 other words, it is quite free from rancidity but the brown oil when 

 treated in the same way causes the water with which it is shaken to red- 

 den litmus paper. (' ' When the inhabitant of Arctic regions prefers his 

 fat rancid, probably he is only following out what experience has taught 

 him is good in his liberal consumption of fat.") The bearing of these 

 observations on the digestion of fat is plain. When the contents of the 

 stomach pass the pylorus, they encounter the bile and pancreatic juice, 

 which are alkaline, from the presence in them of carbonate of soda, so 

 that the fatty ingredients of the chyme, if they only contain a small 

 admixture of free fatty acids, are at once placed under favorable circum- 

 stances for the production of an emulsion without the help of any solu- 

 ble ferment, the mere agitation of the contents of the bowels by the 

 peristaltic action being sufficient for the purpose.' (Roberts.) 



""Possibly some fats containing a large proportion of oleine emul- 

 sionize more readily than others. But the whole subject is in its 

 infancy so far as our acquaintance with it is concerned. 



"Cod-liver oil contains about l^V per cent of volatile fatty acid, some 

 of which is butyric acid. This, together with its fluidity, accounts for 

 its easy digestion and absorption. 



The following is what some of the standard authors say about the 

 digestibility of butter and other fats: 



" ' Like other fats and oils it (lard) is difficult of digestion, and, there- 

 fore, is sometimes used as a laxative for children, and for its protec- 

 tive power in diarrhea, dysentery, etc. It has been pro- 

 posed as a substitute for cod-liver oil in the treatment of phthisis (con- 

 sumption), but its indigestible nature unfits it for this purpose.' 



"' Apart, however, from the deficiency in flavor, it is doubtful 

 whether "butterine" (artificial butter) can be said to fully supply the 

 place of butter as an article of diet. When the highly complex and 

 peculiar character of the constitution of butter is considered, and that 

 it is the fat derived from or natural to milk, which for a time at 

 least is the principal food of the young, it is probable that butter per- 

 forms some more specific office in the system than ordinary fats.' 



" As before stated, fats consist of a fatty acid and oxide of lipyl. 

 In the adult it is the pancreas which effects this separation into these 

 approximate constituents. We all know that if this change does not 

 occur the fat passes off unchanged by the bowels; and, as Bernard has 

 shown, the expulsion of fat is one of the surest indications of dis- 

 eased pancreas. In the infant, judging from the want of development 



