510 DIGESTION. 



Besides the enzymes which have been discussed in connection with 

 the pancreatic juice, the gland also contains others, among which can be 

 mentioned the enzyme which, according to STOKLASA and his collab- 

 orators, occurs principally in organs and tissues and which decomposes 

 sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide, like zymase. Opinions as to the 

 importance of the pancreas for glycolysis are diverse, and we therefore 

 refer the reader to what has been previously stated on this subject in 

 Chapter VII, pages 407 and 408. 



V. THE CHEMICAL PROCESSES IN THE INTESTINE. 



The action which belongs to each digestive secretion may be essen- 

 tially changed under certain conditions by being mixed with other 

 digestive fluids for various reasons, and also by the action of the 

 enzymes upon each other; l and since the digestive fluids which flow 

 into the intestine are mixed with still another fluid, the bile, it will be 

 readily understood that the combined action of all these fluids in the 

 intestine makes the chemical processes going on therein very complicated. 



As the acid of the gastric juice acts destructively on ptyalin, this 

 enzyme has no further diastatic action, even after the acid of the gastric 

 juice has been neutralized in the intestine. ROGER and SIMON 2 claim 

 to have observed in saliva made inactive by the gastric juice, a reac- 

 tivation caused by the pancreatic juice, but these investigations do 

 not seem to be fully conclusive. The bile has, at least in certain animals, 

 a slight diastatic action, which in itself can hardly be of any great 

 importance, but which shows that the bile has not a preventive, but 

 rather a beneficial influence on the energetic diastatic action of the pan- 

 creatic juice. Several experimenters 3 have observed a beneficial action 

 of the bile on the diastatic action of the pancreas infusion. To this 

 may be added that the micro-organisms which habitually occur in the 

 intestine and sometimes in the food have partly a diastatic action and 

 partly produce a lactic-acid and butyric-acid fermentation. The 

 maltose which is formed from the starch seems to be converted into 

 glucose in the intestine. It seems conclusively that the cellulose cannot 

 be digested in the organism of the dog. 4 LOHRISCH found that on an 

 average of 50 per cent of the introduced cellulose and hemicellulose was 

 digested in human beings and yielded the corresponding sugar. That 



1 See Wr6blewski and collaborators, Hofmeister's Beitrage, 1. 



2 Compt. rend. soc. biol., 62. 



3 Martin arid Williams, Proceed, of Roy. Soc., 45 and 48; Bruno, footnote 2, p. 

 502; Buglia, Bioch. Zeitschr. 25. 



4 Scheunert, cited from Bioch. Centralbl. 10, 71; see also Lorhisch, Zeitschr. f. physiol. 

 Chem. 69, 143 (1910) as well as Bioch. Centralbl. 8, 334. 



