258 DIGESTION. 



pass from the stomach into the small intestine, and can be 

 distinguished in the tube for a considerable distance. 1 



"Whether the gastric juice be entirely incapable of acting 

 upon the muscular substance or not, the above-mentioned 

 facts clearly show that, usually, muscular tissue is not com- 

 pletely digested in the stomach. The action in this organ is 

 to dissolve out the inter-muscular fibrous tissue and the sar- 

 colemma, or sheath of the muscular fibres, setting the true 

 muscular substance free, and breaking it up into small parti- 

 cles. The mass of tissue is thus reduced to th'e condition 

 of a thin pultaceous fluid which passes into the small intes- 

 tine, where the process of digestion is completed. As far as 

 a great part of the muscular substance is concerned, the ac- 

 tion in the stomach is preparatory, and not final. 



The constituents of the blood (fibrin, albumen, and cor- 

 puscles), which may be introduced in small quantity in con- 

 nection with muscular tissue, are probably completely dis- 

 solved in the stomach. 



Action upon Albumen, Fibrin, Caseine, and Gelatine. 

 Dr. Beaumont thought that raw albumen, or white of egg, 

 became first coagulated in the stomach, and was afterward 

 dissolved ; but this has been disproved by numerous other 

 observers, who, however, have experimented chiefly on dogs. 

 Reference to the experiments of Beaumont will show that 

 the phenomena which he described as taking place in a mix- 

 ture of equal parts of white of egg and gastric juice, kept at 

 the temperature of the body for three hours, do not really 

 indicate coagulation. He states that " in ten or fifteen 

 minutes, small, white flocculi began to appear, floating 

 about ; and the mixture became of an opaque and whitish 

 appearance. This continued slowly and uniformly to in- 

 crease for three hours, at which time the fluid had become 

 of a milky appearance ; the small flocculi, or loose coagula, 



1 DALTON, A Treatise on Human Physiology, Philadelphia, 1864, p. 157 



