436 ABNORMAL INTESTINAL FERMENTATIONS. [BOOK II. 



health and life of the animal as must be the non-production of 

 ptomaines. It may be surmised that it is in this direction that the 

 antiseptic influence of the bile acids makes itself felt, though it 

 appears possible that the effect is due to the fact that ptomaines are 

 essentially the products of anaerobic bacterial processes, whilst it is 

 probable that (notwithstanding the usual total absence of oxygen in 

 the intestinal tube) a free diffusion of this gas is constantly going on 

 between the blood of the mucous membrane and the intestinal 

 contents which cover its surface. 



Discovery of Under very exceptional circumstances, however, 

 Cadaverin and bases which belong to the class of diamines have been 

 Putrescin in f olin( j i n t h e intestinal contents. 



in" 5 cysrtinifria 6 Thus Baumann and Udransky 1 have found that 



cholera and dy- tetra-methylendiamin or putrescin, NH 2 -(CH 2 ) 4 NH 2 , 

 sentery, perni- and penta-methylendiamin or cadaverin, NH 2 (CH 2 ) 5 

 cious ansemia. _ NH 2 , regularly occur as products of intestinal de- 

 composition in cases where cystin appears in the urine. The same 

 diamines occur, according to Brieger 2 , not only in cholera stools, but 

 in cultures of the cholera spirillum. The two diamines to which we 

 have referred are destitute of poisonous properties, and their presence 

 merely indicates the occurrence of abnormal processes of decomposi- 

 tion ; they appear to be accompanied, in the case of cholera cultures, 

 by a very poisonous derivative of guanidin, the so-called methyl- 

 guanidin, CH 4 N 3 . CH 3 , which is also a product of the putrefaction of 

 muscle 3 , 4 and by certain specific ptomaines, which possess the power 

 of lowering the animal temperature. 



SECT. 2. THE DECOMPOSITION OF THE CARBO-HYDRATES IN THE 

 SMALL INTESTINE UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF BACTERIAL ACTION. 



Although we have, in the last section, described at length the 

 various products which can arise from the bacterial decomposition of 

 the albuminous and albuminoid bodies, we have stated that in the 

 small intestine such processes play a very insignificant part. With 

 the bodies which belong to the group of the carbohydrates the 

 matter is very different, for the small intestine is, throughout, the 

 seat of processes of fermentation which decompose a part of the 

 sugars which arise under the influence of the digestive enzymes, into 

 simpler products. The chief of these are alcohol, lactic, acetic, and 

 succinic acids, and, in certain cases, carbon dioxide and hydrogen. 



1 Baumann und Udransky, 'Ueber das Vorkommen von Diaminen, sogenannten 

 Ptomamen bei Cystinurie,' Zeitsch. f. physiol. Chem., Vol. xm. (1889), p. 562, and 

 Vol. xv. 1891, p. 77. 



2 Brieger, Virchow's Archiv, Vol. cxv. p. 486. 



3 Brieger, ' Ueber Ptomaine,' Dritter Theil, Berlin, 1886, p. 33. 



4 0. Bocklish, ' Ueber Ptomaine aus Reinculturen von Vibrio proteus, ' Ber. d. deutsch. 

 chem. Geselkch., Vol. xx. p. 1441. 



