CHAP. II.] NON-DIGESTION OF THE LIVING STOMACH. 161 



spleen had been pretty thoroughly digested, and the left half of 

 the diaphragm had been perforated. The process proceeds most 

 perfectly when the external conditions are such that the body cools 

 slowly ; it affects particularly the fundus of the stomach. 



Why is the John Hunter attempted to explain the non-solution 

 living stomach of the living stomach by the gastric juice as due to its 

 not digested by vital properties, to the 'living principle' , which 

 its own juice? exempted it from an action which dead matter could 

 not resist. But this explanation, besides being open to the objection 

 of a petitio principii, is disproved by the fact that living tissues 

 may, under certain circumstances, be digested by the stomach. Thus 

 Claude Bernard found that the legs of a living frog which had been 

 introduced through a fistula into the interior of the stomach of a dog 

 underwent digestion, though the animal was alive. 



Claude Bernard explained the non-digestion of the gastric 

 mucous membrane as due to its epithelial covering, which is con- 

 tinually being renewed, whilst Schiff believed that the layer of 

 mucus which covers the internal surface of the stomach effectually 

 protects it. The view of Claude Bernard is disproved by the fact 

 that in cases where the continuity of the epithelial covering of the 

 stomach is interrupted, as in gastric ulcer, digestion of the parts 

 deprived of epithelium does not occur. Schiff's view is probably in 

 part true. Scientific opinion has, however, inclined to favour the 

 view of Dr Pavy, that the non-digestion of the living stomach is con- 

 nected with the circulation through the blood-vessels of the mucous 

 membrane, of alkaline blood, whence there is continually transuding 

 alkaline plasma, which bathes the ultimate anatomical elements of 

 the tissues. The acid gastric juice which could penetrate to these, 

 having its acidity removed, is naturally rendered inert. This view 

 has been supported by the fact that when certain of the arteries 

 of the stomach are tied, the areas supplied by them are liable to 

 perforation, by a process said to be similar to that of post-mortem 

 digestion; more probably, however, perforation depends upon a ne- 

 crotic process, affecting the anatomical elements of the part concerned. 



The Physiological Action of Albumoses and Peptones. 



Allusion has already been made to the observations 



The obser- o f Schmidt-Mulheim and of Fano on the influence of 



Schmidt Mil? a lbumoses in checking the coagulation of the blood. 



helm. The comparative action of albumoses and peptones will 



now be considered. In a series of researches on the 



nature and physiological action of the products of the digestion of 



proteids, Schmidt-Mulheim l announced the fact that when peptones 



1 A. Schmidt-Mulheim, Zur Kenntniss des Peptons und seiner physiol. Bedeu- 

 tung' (Aus d. phys. Anstalt zu Leipzig). Du Bois Keymond's Archiv f. Anat. u. 

 fkyriolog. Phys. Abtheil. 1880, p. 33. 



G. 11 



