252 DIGESTIVE SYSTEM. 



made in it by way of experiment, Schiff has found that the 

 pancreatic juice, secreted at the very moment when it is 

 generally most active, is entirely deprived of that ferment 

 by means of which alone it can act on the albumens. 



A number of experimental and clinical results here present 

 themselves, in the midst of which it is difficult to decide on 

 which will finally prove to be a gain to physiology ; we will, 

 however, sum them up rapidly, in order to show how much 

 there still is to study in the digestive functions, and in the 

 spleen, an organ which is still a mystery in every respect 

 (see p. 206). 



While injury to the spleen weakens the digestive proper- 

 ties of the pancreatic juice, Schiff discovered that it renders 

 the secretion and the action of the gastric juice much more 

 active: by taking out the stomach and the pancreas of an 

 animal, Schiff found that artificial digestion, by means of an 

 infusion of these tissues, yields three grammes of digested 

 albumen for the stomach, and from thirty to fifty centi- 

 grammes for the pancreas. But if the stomach that is used 

 be taken from a similar animal which has been previously 

 deprived of its spleen, the artificial digestion by means of the 

 gastric membrane will liquefy in an equal amount of time 

 eight grammes of albumen ; while that of the pancreas has no 

 digestive effect upon the albuminoids. We see, in the latter 

 case, that the gastric membrane alone digests a larger quan- 

 tity of matter than the stomach and the pancreas together, 

 in the case first mentioned. 



According to Schiff, the increase of appetite observed in 

 animals whose spleen has been removed, is caused by this 

 large increase of the digestive action of the stomach, and he 

 thus explains the case of a woman who, after extirpation of 

 the spleen, was afflicted with an enormous appetite. 



More curious facts still lead us to infer that as the pan- 

 creatic juice loses its influence over the albuminoids, its 

 power over the fatty and the amylaceous matters becomes still 

 greater than before. (Vulpian, " Cours du Museum," 1866.) 

 lri order to comprehend that there is nothing unreasonable 

 in this view, we must first call to mind that researches by 

 Kiihne, Danileski, Hoppe Seyler (Ritter, op. cit.), have 

 proved that the pancreatine which is the active principle of 

 the pancreatic juice, is a mixture of three individual fer- 

 ments, having each an independent action : the first, precip- 

 itable by calcined magnesia, acts upon the fats ; the second, 

 separated by precipitation from a solution of collodion, is 



