

iv DIGESTION IN THE INTESTINE 255 



auto-digestion during life ? He would at once have perceived the 

 inadequacy of his explanation, which applies to the stomach only, 

 and would have attacked the problem on wider grounds. 



In the first place, does post-mortem auto-digestion take place 

 in the pancreas and the bowel ? Gaglio demonstrated this by 

 killing dogs 5 to 10 hours after digestion had commenced, by an 

 incision in the medulla oblongata, after which he placed the body 

 in an oven kept at a constant temperature of 39 C. by a d'Arsonval 

 regulator. On making sections, unmistakable signs of auto- 

 digestion appeared throughout the small intestine, the mucous 

 membrane of which was irregularly perforated, and showed 

 between half-digested loops of intestine parts that were more or 

 less intact. In the place of Peyer's patches he noted deep pits 

 with sharply marked walls, which resembled ulcerated plaques. 

 Beyond the lymph follicles of the open or necrosed plaques, he 

 found that the muscular coats were more or less softened accord- 

 ing as the digestive process was more or less advanced, which 

 depended on the state of the intestinal loop, i.e. as filled with chyme, 

 or empty and distended with gas. The pancreas was softened, 

 reddish-brown in colour, with some parenchymatous effusions of 

 blood. Under the microscope it showed deformed gland cells, in 

 which the inner granular zone was no longer distinct from the 

 outer homogeneous zone, the one bulging out, the other being 

 reduced to detritus. Similar results were obtained from experi- 

 ments on fowls, guinea-pigs, and rabbits. 



When Gaglio had killed the dog and placed it in the warm 

 chamber while the stomach was still full of food, he found that 

 the phenomena of auto-digestion were most marked in the stomach, 

 which might be almost entirely digested, and that the chyme 

 poured into the peritoneal cavity might begin to digest the 

 other viscera. But when the animal was killed 11 hours after an 

 abundant meal, he found the stomach perfectly empty without any 

 clear signs of auto-digestion, save for a more or less extensive 

 softening of the mucous membrane, while the inner wall of the 

 small intestine and pancreas exhibited phenomena of digestive 

 solution as described above. 



The problem of auto-digestion cannot therefore be confined to 

 the stomach, but must be extended to the intestine and pancreas 

 also. Accordingly, the cause that prevents auto-digestion during 

 life is not peculiar to the stomach, but is probably common to 

 all organs on which the digestive juices containing proteolytic 

 enzymes take effect, both such as act in an acid medium (pepsin), 

 and such as digest in an alkaline medium (trypsin). 



In order to see if the resistance to the action of the digestive 

 juices is common to other living organs as well, in analogy with 

 that of the stomach and intestine, Gaglio introduced active 

 gastric juice, or a very active glycerol extract of pancreas, into 



