vni] in the Eighteenth Century. 211 



with a yellowish, somewhat opalescent fluid, which to the taste 

 was salt and bitter. Obviously it was this fluid which dis- 

 solved the meat and bone. And he put to himself the question, 

 " What then is this liquid which acts on meat and on bone in 

 " some such way as leau regale acts on gold, but has not the 

 "same power over starch (farina) that I'eau regale has over 

 " silver ? To which of the solvents which chemistry offers us 

 " can this liquid be compared ? " 



To answer this question he filled his tubes with small pieces 

 of sponge, from which, when rejected, he squeezed out the fluid 

 which they had imbibed. In this way he obtained a quantity, 

 on one occasion 63 grains, of an opalescent fluid, salt to the taste 

 rather than sour, a fluid " which turned blue paper red." By 

 help of this contrivance he was the first to obtain gastric juice 

 in an approximately pure condition. 



With this fluid he attempted to digest in vitro. He exposed 

 pieces of meat to the action of it at 32° R. for 24 hours, using 

 similar pieces of meat placed in simple water as a control. His 

 first experiment was wholly a failure. In a second experiment 

 while the control putrefied, the meat in the gastric juice though 

 not very much dissolved was hardly at all putrefied. Digestion 

 therefore was not putrefaction but something actually opposed 

 to that process. 



At this stage unfortunately his Kite died and his experi- 

 ments were stopped. 



He continued his investigations, making use of other animals. 

 He gave to a dog some bones, and also some of his tubes con- 

 taining meat. On killing the dog 24 hours afterwards, he found 

 the bones not crushed but partly dissolved and much altered ; 

 the meat in the tubes also was much dissolved though the 

 tubes themselves were hardly or not at all distorted, and there- 

 fore had not been crushed. Some further experiments in which 

 he made sheep swallow tubes filled some with chopped green 

 herbs, others with chopped hay, and examined the contents of 

 the tubes by killing the animal and finding them in the paunch 

 14 hours afterwards, or by waiting until they had been voided, 

 gave dubious or rather negative results. The contents of the 

 tubes were not greatly altered. 



14—2 



