516 APPENDIX. 



and its quantity was considerably increased very soon after drink 

 had been taken : however, the most singular circumstance is, that 

 the intestinal juice shows the same concentration as before the 

 ingestion of the fluid; hence we must conclude with Schmidt, that 

 the drink is absorbed in the stomach and in the upper part of the 

 small intestine, and that the water, which thus finds its way into the 

 blood, increases the intestinal juice in common with the other 

 secretions. 



With regard to the functions of the intestinal juice, it seems to 

 a certain degree to unite in itself the powers of the gastric and pan- 

 creatic fluids. For it is established by the numerous experiments 

 of Bidder and Schmidt, that this fluid can dissolve and render fit 

 for resorption not only starch, but also flesh and other protein- 

 bodies. Starch (in the form of paste) when introduced into pre- 

 viously cleared and tied loops of gut, was usually converted in the 

 course of three hours into a thin fluid mass, which no longer gave 

 the well-known reaction with iodine. Starch-paste and intestinal 

 juice, when mixed together and exposed to a temperature of from 

 35 to 40, assumed a thin fluid condition in the course of a 

 quarter of an hour, and the mixture was then found to be rich in 

 sugar. 



In a similar way pieces of flesh or of coagulated albumen were 

 introduced into tied loops, and in the course of from 6 to 14 hours 

 they were found to be for the most part or entirely digested. It 

 was also shown by experiments, made externally to the organism, 

 that pure alkaline intestinal juice, as well as that secretion when 

 mixed with bile and pancreatic juice, possesses the power of dis- 

 solving protein-bodies. Pare intestinal juice dissolved in the 

 course of 6 hours from 36*4 to 40*78- of the flesh digested in it, and 

 very similar ratios were observed when intestinal juice mixed with 

 bile and pancreatic fluid was used. Hence it follows that bile 

 and pancreatic fluid, which impede the digestion of the albu- 

 minates by the gastric juice, do not in any way interfere with the 

 digestive powers of the intestinal juice. 



We may here refer to a fact which has been previously mentioned 

 (see p. 502 of this volume), namely, that a very large amount of albv- 

 minates passes undigested from the stomach, and that the quantity of 

 gastric juice which is secreted is not sufficient to effect the solution 

 of the protein- matter necessary for nutrition; and from this we 

 should obviously conclude that nature has provided some other 

 digestive agent as a solvent for the protein-bodies in addition to 

 the gastric juice; and the same remark applies to the saliva and 



