66 PROTEIN DIGESTION IN THE INTESTINE 



we may often find that the very greatest advances in 

 physiology may be formulated in a few simple words ; in this 

 case they run: "the problem of the role of foodstuffs of 

 complicated structure is solved by their most simplified 

 structural units. ' ' 53 



Application of these Results in Sickroom Dietary. 

 These results are not only of interest to physiologists, but 

 are of extreme importance in practical medicine. Abder- 

 halden, Frank and Schittenhelm 54 have actually prevented 

 nitrogenous loss for weeks in a patient by rectal feeding with 

 beef split by the combined action of trypsin and erepsin 

 until the biuret reaction no longer showed. This proves the 

 possibility of introduction into human beings of their daily 

 nitrogenous requirement without bringing the parts con- 

 cerned with protein cleavage into activity. The nitrogen 

 may thus be introduced in fluid form in small volume for 

 quick and complete resorption. It may be predicted that in 

 the future the employment of preparations of this sort will 

 find a field in the treatment of gastric ulcer, stenoses, can- 

 cerous and ulcerous processes of any sort wherever they may 

 exist in the digestive tube. Where there is occasion to spare 

 the digestive tract, theoretically it is unquestionably more 

 rational to introduce the physiologically definite mixture of 

 the end products of protein cleavage than to administer the 

 usually indefinite prepared foods with which people in re- 

 cent years have been so richly favored (largely through in- 

 sistent laudatory advertising and in a much less measure 



03 E. Abderhalden, Synthese der Zellbausteine in Pflanz und Tier, p. 74, Ber- 

 lin, J. Springer, 1912. Cf. therein (pp. 116-118) a summary of the studies 

 conducted by Abderhalden in association with P. Rona, B. Oppler, E. S. London, 

 J. Olinger, E. Meszner, H. Windrath, F. Frank, A. Schittenhelm, F. Glamser, D. 

 Manoliu, and A. Suwa. Cf. also Zeitschr. f. physiol. Chem., 77, 22, 1912. 



"E. Abderhalden, F. Frank and A. Schittenhelm, Zeitschr. f. physiol. 

 Chem., 63, 214, 1909; F. Frank and A. Schittenhelm (Med. Clinic, Erlangen), 

 Munchener med. Wochenschr., 1911, 1288; Therap. Monatsch., 26, 112, 1912. 



