CARBOHYDRATE DIGESTION IN THE INTESTINE 195 



It should be kept in mind that when any considerable amount 

 of food is ingested only that first swallowed comes into direct 

 contact with the gastric mucous membrane. The acidity 

 need by no means prevail in the interior of the food mass, 

 and the diastasic action of the saliva incorporated in the 

 mass may continue for some time in the performance of its 

 work. 1 



Carbohydrate Digestion in the Stomach. There can be 

 no doubt of the fact that there is a carbohydrate cleavage 

 beginning in the stomach itself, particularly as hydrochloric 

 acid alone, without the aid of enzymes, especially at the in- 

 cubator temperature of the stomach of the warm-blooded 

 animal, is effective in this sense. According to the investi- 

 gations of the Ellenberger school 2 and others it may be 

 accepted that many mammals, as the hog, produce a special 

 gastric diastase. And in the dog, the canine saliva being 

 devoid of diastase, it is said the stomach is capable of form- 

 ing a diastasic ferment, one which is active even in strongly 

 acid reaction. Others, it is true, have reached the conclusion 

 that the carbohydrates generally undergo no appreciable 

 alterations in the stomach of the dog, and that a slight degree 

 of cleavage met there may be explained by the influence of 

 the hydrochloric acid of the gastric juice, so that to them the 

 assumption of an amylolytic or inverting ferment seems 

 unnecessary. 3 



Carbohydrate Digestion in the Intestine. However, 

 it may be said that both the cleavage and the resorption of 

 the carbohydrates for the most part reach their height 

 primarily in the intestine, where they are subjected princi- 

 pally to the powerful influence of the pancreatic diastase, 

 but also to other enzymes as well (invertin, maltase, lactase). 

 Starch unquestionably undergoes a series of catabolic 



1 0. Cohnheim, Physiol. d. Verd. u. Ernahrung, p. 142, 1908. 

 2 F. Bengla and G. Haane (Ellenberger Lab.), Pfliiger's Arch., 106, 267, 

 286, 1904; consult there and also O. Cohnheim (1. c.) for Literature. 

 8 London and his associates, Zeitschr. f . physiol. Chemie., 56, 1908. 



