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THE STRUCTURE OF THE GLANDS OF BRUNNER 



ROBERT RUSSELL BENSLET . . 



I. INTRODUCTION 



THE appearance recently of the papers of Castellant- (I'SSS) :arid ; Hbck; i(ift99), 

 dealing with the structure of the glands of Brunner, is a sign of renewed interest in a 

 group of glands which has baffled both the physiologist and the anatomist. The 

 efforts of the former have been largely directed toward investigating the presence or 

 absence of digestive ferments in the succus entericus or in artificial extracts of the 

 gland. Their investigations, undertaken with this object in view, have not yielded 

 uniform results, although the recent studies of Glassner (1902) confirm the observa- 

 tions of Grutzner (1872) that the glands of Brunner contain a proteolytic ferment. 



Wepfer (1679), who discovered the glands in 1679, described their arrangement 

 in the duodenum, and observed that when macerated in water they liberated an 

 abundant amount of mucus. Eight years later the glands were described more fully 

 by Brunner, who regarded them as a sort of secondary pancreas. The incorrectness 

 of this view was shown by Claude Bernard (1856) and Middeldorpf (1846), both of 

 whom pointed out that the secretion of the glands of Brunner differed from that of 

 the pancreas. 



Budge and Krolow (1870) found that the extract of the glands of Brunner would 

 transform starch into sugar, would dissolve fibrin in acid solution, but would not act 

 on coagulated albumen nor on fats. 



Grutzner (1872), following up his observations on the proteolytic ferments of the 

 pyloric glands, which he, in common with Heidenhain (1870) and Ebstein (1870), 

 regarded as pepsin-forming glands composed of chief cells like those of the fundus 

 glands, found that he could obtain by extraction of the glands of Brunner with 0.1 per 

 cent, hydrochloric acid a solution which would rapidly digest fibrin in acid solutions. 



Similar positive results as to the existence of a proteolytic ferment were obtained 

 by Gachet and Pachon (1898), who introduced cylinders of coagulated albumen into 

 the isolated duodenum after tying the pancreatic duct. 



Recently Glassner (1902) has extended to the study of the ferments of the glands 

 of Brunner the methods which he had already employed with success to separate the 

 various ferments of the gastric mucous membrane. The extracts which he obtained, 

 after taking all possible precautions to exclude the glands of Lieberktihn from the 

 material extracted, and to destroy adherent pepsin and trypsin, were inactive with 

 respect to starch, cane sugar, and fats. On the other hand, they digested fibrin, 

 serum albumen, and coagulated egg albumen in solutions containing 0.2-0.3 per cent, 

 of hydrochloric acid. Moreover, some proteolytic activity was still displayed when 



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