344: DIGESTION. 



demonstrated by Bernard, and his observations have been so 

 widely corroborated that it is now regarded as an established 

 fact, that- earlier publications on this subject have possessed 

 any interest or importance. 



With the exception of the above-mentioned observations 

 of Eberle, nothing definite had been ascertained concerning 

 the digestion of fats anterior to the experiments of Bernard. 1 



One of the most remarkable facts observed by Bernard 

 was that, in the rabbit, after the ingestion of fatty matters, 

 vessels filled with white chyle do not make their appearance 



nine volumes, with additions by E. Burdach, Dieffenbach, Mayer, J. Miiller, 

 Rathke, Siebold, Yalentin, and Wagner. ( Traite de Physiologic consideree comme 

 Science d 1 Observation, trad, par Jourdan, Paris, 1837-1841.) This work is 

 mainly a compilation of the physiological literature of the day, drawn largely 

 from the German. In vol. ix., p. 380, which is referred to by Longet, Burdach 

 quotes two lines from Eberle, saying that " according to Eberle, it (the pancre- 

 atic juice) serves besides to dilute the fat, and to reduce it to the form of an 

 emulsion ; a great part of its constituent principles pass also into the chyle. 7 ' 

 But in the previous page (379) he has the following paragraph : 



" We have even less knowledge of the effects of the pancreatic juice than 

 of those of the bile. Eberle supposes that it is analogous to the intestinal juice, 

 because the pancreas is a continuation of the intestine. But, in reasoning in 

 this manner, one would have fully as much foundation for saying the same thing 

 of the bile. And when Eberle attributes to it the effects which he has remarked 

 in the pancreatic juice artificially imitated, by that, he gives a very feeble basis 

 to his theory, which fortunately contains nothing in particular." 



As the above constitutes about the only mention which is made of the obser- 

 vations of Eberla, even in German works, it is very easy to appreciate the state 

 of knowledge concerning the function of the pancreas, anterior to the experi- 

 ments of Bernard ; and it is not surprising that he should have been ignorant 

 of these experiments, which have been only quoted since his discovery has taken 

 so prominent a place in science. 



1 These experiments were commenced in the winter of 1846, and were first 

 publicly announced in the year 1848, in a communication to the Society of Biology 

 of Paris. They were subsequently made the subject of a memoir which received 

 the prize of the Academy of Sciences, in 1850. A full account of all the researches 

 of Bernard upon this subject is contained in his Memoire sur le Pancreas, Paris, 

 1856. The results of his experiments are also contained in his Lecons sur la 

 Physiologic Experimentalc, Paris, 1856, and in the Lecons surles Proprietes Phy- 

 swlogiquea et les Alterations Pathologiques des Liquides de V Organisms, Paris, 

 1859, tomeii. 



