1903.] Fats accompanying Absorption from the Intestine. 151 



The living cell from this point of view must be regarded as an energy 

 transformer of much more complex type than the chemical catalyser or 

 enzyme, and capable of producing, as shown by the present experi- 

 ments, synthetic changes which do not occur as the result of the action 

 of its chemical constituents when the complex structure of the cell is 

 broken down, and its function as a whole abolished. 



4. Extracts of pancreas, intestinal mucous membrane, and mesenteric 

 lymphatic glands, possess the power of setting free oleic acid from 

 solutions of sodium oleate. 



The alkali split off from the sodium oleate becomes stably combined 

 with some substance in the extracts and does not recombine with the 

 oleic acid on evaporating down the solutions. 



The power of setting free the oleic acid is diminished, but not 

 destroyed, by boiling, nor even by evaporating the extracts to dryness. 



The change occurs in faintly alkaline solution and is completed with- 

 out the reaction becoming acid. 



No similar change is obtained under the conditions of concentration 

 of the experiment with water or saline solution, and hence the reaction 

 is due to some substance in the extracts. 



Such a change may possibly in the cell be the initial change which 

 the soap undergoes in the synthesis into neutral fat. 



The change obviously will act as a protection to the cells of the 

 body against invasion by poisonous soaps in the circulation, and here 

 serves a similar function to that seen in the conversion of the albumoses 

 into coagulable proteids by the intestinal cells. 



