ACTION UPON FATS. 343 



be said to have anticipated it. The following is the experi- 

 ment described by Eberle : " Artificial pancreatic fluid 

 was mixed and shaken up with a drop of oil, and presently 

 assumed the appearance of an emulsion, but after repose 

 several small oil-drops again presented themselves, which 

 appeared to have lost little or none of their clearness and 

 transparency. However, when more oil was added, and the 

 mixture shaken, receiving the warmth of the hand, it then 

 became an opaque, yellowish- white fluid, from which, after 

 repose, considerable oil separated on the surface. But this 

 oil was itself white and opaque, and so finely subdivided, that 

 it presented a creamy appearance, and the remaining fluid 

 did not again become clear. 



" Consequently the pancreatic juice is capable of taking 

 up fat in a very finely subdivided condition and thus forming 

 a sort of emulsion." 1 



The opinion thus advanced by Eberle was a mere conjec- 

 ture, based upon the behavior of an artificial fluid which had 

 not been proven to possess the properties of the normal pan- 

 creatic secretion. Though these passages are quoted by Lon- 

 get a as proof that Bernard did not discover the function of the 

 pancreas, it must be acknowledged that they bear no more rela- 

 tion to the discovery as established by positive demonstration, 

 than do the sayings of Servetus, Columbo, or Cesalpinus, to 

 the demonstration of the circulation of the blood by Harvey. 

 Eberle did not obtain the secretion of the pancreas, and the 

 emulsion which he formed with his artificial fluid was mani- 

 festly very imperfect. Furthermore, the experimental basis 

 for his views was so slight that his observations are not even 

 mentioned in the works on physiology published at that 

 time, save in one, where they received merely a passing al- 

 lusion. 3 It is only since the function of the pancreas has been 



1 EBERLE, op. cit., p. 251. 



3 LONGET, Traite de Physiologic, Paris, 1861, tome i., p. 260. 

 ? LONGET (loc. cit.) states that the opinion of Eberle seems to have been 

 adopted by Burdach. Burdach was the author of a large work on physiology, in 



