17 PHYSIOLOGICAL CHEMISTRY. 



able experiments made with animals threw some light on the 

 question. It was found that dogs were able to live and thrive 

 without the stomach, mixed foods of various kinds being al- 

 most, if not quite, perfectly digested in the intestine. One of 

 these dogs was kept under observation several years after com- 

 plete removal of the stomach, and in other cases dogs have 

 been fed through long periods by direct injection of food into 

 the small intestine, the connection with the stomach being 

 meanwhile completely broken by ligature. The feces of these 

 animals were found to be practically normal in most cases. 



With such facts in view a school of chemists following 

 Bunge have come to the conclusion that the main use of the 

 stomach is in the destruction of bacteria taken in with the food. 

 The acid usually present in the gastric juice is sufficiently 

 strong to destroy most of the ferment organisms, which if 

 allowed to live and pass into the alkaline intestine would cer- 

 tainly work great harm. It must be granted that this view 

 appears plausible; the protection of the intestine through the 

 sterilizing action of the acid is beyond question of prime im- 

 portance and that the stomach actually accomplishes this end 

 must not be forgotten in any discussion of the relations of the 

 one organ to the other. It is well known what happens in the 

 human stomach when, from some cause, the hydrochloric acid 

 is temporarily absent or greatly diminished. A great devel- 

 opment of organic acid-producing bacteria follows, and the 

 products of these are a source of much discomfort without 

 being at the same time strong enough to check the growth of 

 certain pathogenic bacteria. 



But after all these facts have been given due weight we 

 must still admit that the peptic digestion if not actually " essen- 

 tial " is in practice really important. Some peptone, although 

 not a large amount, is formed in the stomach and this is ready 

 for immediate absorption from the intestine. The proteoses 

 are doubtless in part ready for absorption also ; the final diges- 

 tion of the remainder is a question of but a short time rela- 

 tively, in addition. In studying the products of pancreatic 



