CHYMIFICATION. 



591 



h 



M. Montegre 1 denies that 

 the gastric juice has any 

 coagulating power ! 



In some experiments, 

 undertaken by M. J. F. 

 Simon 2 with a view to de- 

 termine, whether the sto- 

 mach of the child possesses 

 the same properties of 

 coagulating milk as that 

 of the calf, he found that 

 cow's milk was not coagu- 

 lated by it, but that, when 

 a quantity of the colos- 

 trum of the mother of a 



Child, Which died When 



five days old, was obtained, and a piece of calf's stomach was intro- 

 duced into it, the milk coagulated. 



Another property, manifestly possessed by the secretion in question, 

 is that of preventing putrefaction, or of obviating it in substances ex- 

 posed to its action. Montegre and Thackrah 3 deny it this property, 

 but there can be no doubt of its existence. Spallanzani, Fordyce, and 

 others, have ascertained, that in those animals which frequently take 

 their food in a half putrid state, the first operation of the stomach is 

 to disinfect, or remove the foetor from the aliment received into it. 

 We have already alluded to many facts elucidative of this power. 

 Helm of Vienna, 4 in the case of a female who had a fistulous opening 

 in her stomach, observed, that substances which were swallowed in a 

 state of acidity or putridity, soon lost those qualities in the stomach ; 

 and the same power of resisting and obviating putrefaction has been 

 exhibited in experiments made out of the body. Nothing could be 

 more unequivocal, as regards the possession of this property by the 

 gastric fluid, than the experiments of Dr. Beaumont and the author, 5 

 with the secretion obtained from the subject of his varied investigations. 

 In the presence of the author's friend, N. P. Trist, Esq. then consul 

 of the United States at Havana, the odour of putrid food was as 

 speedily removed by it as by chlorinated soda, employed at the same 

 time on other portions. The explanation of this property, as well as 

 that of coagulation, has been a stumbling-block to the chemical phy- 

 siologist. " We can only say concerning it," says Dr. Bostock, 6 "that 

 it is a chemical operation, the nature of which, and the successive steps 

 by which it is produced, we find it difficult to explain; at the same 

 time, that we have very little, in the way of analogy, which can assist 

 us in referring it to any more general principle, or to any of the es- 

 tablished laws of chemical affinity." 



1 Experiences sur la Digestion, Paris, 1824. 



2 Mailer's Archiv. Heft 1, 1839, cited in Brit, and For. Med. Rev., Oct , 1839, p. 549. 



3 Lectures on Digestion and Diet, p. 14, Lond., 1824. 



4 Rudolphi, Grundriss der Physiologic, 2er Band, 2te Abtheil., s. 114, Berlin, 1828. 

 s See the author's Elements of Hygiene, p. 216, Philad., 1835. 



Edit, citat., p. 571. 



