SUGAR. 289 



for saccharine solutions, precisely the opposite rule held good ; for 

 it appeared that when equally large quantities of fluid were 

 injected, the absorption of the saccharine solution stood in a direct 

 ratio to its concentration; that is to say, that the more concentrated 

 the solution is, the larger will be the quantity that is resorbed. 

 Thus, for instance, in several experiments with solutions of sugar, 

 one of which was four times more concentrated than the other, 

 there were four times as much sugar taken up from the former as 

 from the latter, in equal times ; or, while in the former case 

 90-6^ of the sugar injected into the intestinal loop disap- 

 peared, in the latter case only 80^ were resorbed during the same 

 time. 



These rules, as well as the previously mentioned fact, that the 

 intestinal loop absorbing the saccharine solution must have a size 

 proportional to the quantity of sugar, while an excess of size in the 

 loop exerts no influence on the absorption, are explained by those 

 experiments of von Becker's, which were instituted with the view 

 of ascertaining the amount of absorption in different intervals of 

 time, when equally large quantities of equally concentrated saccha- 

 rine solutions were injected. If we lay down a curve representing 

 the amount of the absorption of sugar in the different intervals 

 elapsing between the injection into the gut and the complete empty- 

 ing of the loop, and based upon the sixteen experiments which 

 were made upon this point, we see at the first glance that the 

 absorption of sugar proceeds most rapidly at first, and afterwards 

 more gradually. Four rabbits of equal size were always used in 

 these experiments, and equal quantities of the same saccharine 

 solution having been injected into equally large loops of gut, the 

 animals were killed in ], 2, 3, and 4 hours after the injection. 

 (Inflammation was recognisable about 4 hours afterwards, at the 

 places where the ligatures were applied.) Now if we perceive that 

 the most abundant absorption took place at the commencement, 

 that is to say, during the first hour, this is only a confirmation of 

 the above law, according to which the resorption proceeds with a 

 rapidity proportional to the concentration of the solution. If, after 

 the death of the animal, we observe the degree of fulness of the loop, 

 we find that after the first hour it is thoroughly filled and distended 

 with fluid, if the solution that had been injected was tolerably 

 concentrated ; the volume of the fluid within the loop must, there- 

 fore, have considerably increased by the absorption of water from 

 the blood of the intestinal capillaries. It follows from a careful 

 comparison of the numerical results which have been thus obtained, 

 VOL. III. U 



