PRODUCTS OF PANCREATIC DIGESTION. 189 



THE FUNCTION OF THE INTESTINAL JUICE. 



Closely related to the action of the pancreatic diastases is 

 the behavior of certain enzymes entering the small intestine 

 from other sources, especially from the glands of Lieberkuhn. 

 As these enzymes seem to follow up and complete the pan- 

 creatic digestion, they may be briefly mentioned here. It 

 should be said first, however, that any specific digestive action 

 due to ferments in the secretion of these glands was for a long 

 time denied, but there appears now to be no further question 

 as to the actual behavior of the secretion in this respect. 



Character of the Secretion. The flow into the intestine 

 from the Lieberkuhn glands consists of a thin serum-like 

 liquid, holding in solution protein bodies and salts. The re- 

 action is strongly alkaline because of the presence of sodium 

 carbonate. The amount of this is sufficient to give rise to an 

 evolution of carbon dioxide when an acid is added to the secre- 

 tion collected by a fistula. This alkali is doubtless important 

 in two ways ; it aids in the emulsification of fats, and also helps 

 in the neutralization of the remaining hydrochloric acid from 

 the gastric juice carried into the intestine with the chyme 

 current. 



The ferments appear to have little or no action on fats or 

 proteins, but work on the residues of carbohydrates only. 

 Some chemists claim to find in the intestinal juice a slight 

 starch-digesting power; others deny that such a behavior is 

 possible and limit the activity of the secretion to the inversion 

 of certain sugars, especially cane sugar and malt sugar. In- 

 deed some authors go so far as to urge that all of the inversion 

 processes taking place in the intestine are brought about in this 

 way, while the pancreas can produce malt sugar only. Inves- 

 tigations of this kind are attended with considerable difficulty, 

 which fact must be kept in mind when attempting to draw 

 conclusions from apparently contradictory statements, such as 

 are quoted above. All recent investigations have shown this, 

 that while the intestinal juice may not be the sole agent of in- 

 version, it is certainly an important agent in this direction. 



