SUGAR.' 285 



further, the view that sugar is partially converted into lactic acid, 

 might beheld as thoroughly controverted. But we must not limit 

 ourselves to isolated facts, if we wish to obtain a deeper insight 

 into the phenomena of the living organism ; for the fact remains 

 beyond all question, that after the use of sugar an acid reaction 

 forthwith occurs in the whole of the small intestine and in the 

 first half of the large intestine, and that saliva, gastric juice, and 

 the pancreatic fluid exert no metamorphic power on sugar, this 

 power being possessed in a slight degree by bile, and in a high 

 degree by the intestinal juice,, It is easy to see why, notwith- 

 standing the presence of intestinal mucus and bile, no acid is 

 observed in the isolated loops of gut; for the lactic acid is no 

 sooner formed than it combines with the alkali of the intestinal 

 juice and is rapidly absorbed ; hence it is only seldom that the 

 contents are alkaline, being for the most part neutral. It is still, 

 however, difficult to understand how it is that the chyme, when its 

 passage is not impeded by any loop, so constantly exhibits an 

 acid reaction a fact, to the discovery of which we have not been 

 led by any special predilection for lactic acid ; moreover, Schmidt 

 and Bidder have indeed observed it (without, however, attaching 

 any special value to the observation). If the passage of the food 

 through the intestine be interrupted by a ligature, so much bile 

 collects in a short time above it that the intestine becomes much 

 distended at the spot ; but even here, after sugar has been taken 

 by the mouth, we find no free acid. We wait, therefore, for further 

 investigations to elucidate the cause of the interruption in the 

 formation of lactic acid, which occurs when a single ligature is 

 applied to the intestine. Unfortunately we have been unable to 

 include the consideration of the enormously large intestine of the 

 herbivora in this investigation : my discovery, that after sugar has 

 been taken by the mouth, it may after a very short time be 

 detected in the caecum, and that it is there that the greatest 

 formation of acid occurs, would seem to indicate that this portion 

 of the intestine possesses more active functions than we have been 

 led from former investigations to ascribe to it. Certain experi- 

 ments by von Becker, which have a bearing in this direction, 

 have yielded the most decisive evidence in favour of this view. 



If we regard it as an established fact, that even after the 

 abundant use of amylaceous food, neither dextrin nor sugar can be 

 detected in the portal blood or in the chyle, and that we can for a 

 long time trace the presence of sugar in the intestine, even as far 

 as the csecum, after sugar itself or saccharine food has been taken, 

 the supposition that starch is not merely changed into sugar in 



