OR PEPTONES. 



ible matters, such as cellulose, to pass away in the faeces. 

 The nitrogenized portions of bread are probably acted upon 

 in the stomach in the same way and to the same extent as 

 albumen, fibrin, and caseine. 



Albuminose^ or Peptones. 



The product, or the sum of the products of the digestion 

 of nitrogenized alimentary principles in the stomach, was 

 first closely studied by Mialhe, who regarded the action of 

 the gastric juice on all principles of this class as resulting in 

 their transformation into a new substance which he called 

 albuminose. 1 Lehmann has since investigated the principles 

 resulting from the action of the gastric juice on various 

 nitrogenized matters, and describes them under the name of 

 peptones. 2 It has been conclusively shown that stomach- 

 digestion is not merely a solution of certain alimentary prin- 

 ciples, but that these substances undergo very marked 

 changes, and lose the properties by which they are generally 

 recognized. That the different principles resulting from this 

 transformation resemble each other very closely is also un- 

 doubted ; but there must be, as is suggested by Mialhe, 

 differences in the chemical composition of the products of 

 digestion of different principles, as well as differences, which 

 have lately been noted, with regard to their behavior with 

 reagents. 



The albuminose described by Mialhe is a colorless liquid, 

 with a feeble odor resembling that of meat. It is not coagula- 

 ble by heat, acids, or by pepsin ; a property which distin- 

 guishes it from almost all of the nitrogenized principles of 

 food. It is coagulated, however, by many of the metallic salts, 

 by chlorine, and by a solution of tannin after it has been acidu- 

 lated by nitric acid. 3 An interesting peculiarity of this prin- 



1 MIALHE, 1} Union Medicate, Paris, septembre, 1847, and Chimie appliquee d 

 la Physiologie el d la Therapeutique, Paris, 1856, p. 124 et seq. 

 3 Op. tit., vol. i., p. 451. 

 3 MIALHE, op. cit., p. 125. 



