24 THE IIAEVEIAN ORATION, 1894. 



the case of neutral salts in the pancreas and intestine, is also 

 probable in that important, though as yet very imperfectly 

 known, class of bodies which are known as zymogens. Just as 

 we have in the stomach an inactive salt, so we liave also an 

 inactive pepsinogen, which, like the salt, is split up in the 

 gastric glands, and active pepsine is poured into the stomach. 

 But is pepsine the only active substance produced ? Has no 

 other body, resulting from the decomposition of pepsinogen, 

 been poured into the blood while the pepsine passed into the 

 stomach ? Has the inactive pepsinogen not been split up into 

 two bodies active when apart, inactive when combined ? May 

 it not be fitly compared, as I have said elsewhere, to a cup or 

 glass, harmless v/hile whole, but yielding sharp and even dan- 

 gerous splinters when broken, although these may again be 

 united into a harmless whole ?* 



This question at present we cannot answer, but in the pan- 

 creas there is an indication that something of the kind takes 

 place, for Lepine has discovered that while this gland pours into 

 the intestine a ferment which converts starch into sugar, it 

 pours through the lymphatics into the blood another ferment 

 which destroys sugar. Whether a similar occurrence takes 

 place in regard to its other ferments in the pancreas, or in the 

 glands of the intestine, we do not know. Nor do we yet know 

 whether the same process goes on in the skin, and whetlier the 

 secretion of sweat, which is usually looked upon as its sole 

 function, bears really a relationship to cutaneous activity similar 

 to that which the secretion of bile bears to the functions of the 

 liver. There are indications that such is the case, for when the 

 skin is varnished, not only does the temperature of the animal 

 rapidly sink, but congestion occurs in internal organs, and 

 dropsy takes place in serous cavities, while in extensive burns 

 of the skin rapid disintegration of the blood corpuscles occurs. 

 It is obvious that if this idea be at all correct, a complete revo- 

 lution will be required in the views we have been accustomed 

 to entertain re^avdini> the action of manv medicines. In the 

 case of purgatives and diaphoretics, for example, we have looked 

 mainly at the secretions poured out after their administration 



* Fractitioner, vol. xxxv, August, 1885. 



