98 MILK AND ITS HYGIENIC RELATIONS 



in pathological conditions of the udder. He found that the enzyme 

 action was destroyed by heating to 65 C. for thirty minutes. 



Wohlgemuth and Strich were unable to obtain evidence of the 

 presence of amylase in cows' milk. They showed that in the 

 dog, if the pancreatic duct was tied while the animal was in full 

 lactation, the amylase content of the blood and subsequently of 

 the milk and of the urine increased. The content of the blood was 

 always higher than that of the milk. 



Lane-Claypon carried out investigations upon the amylase 

 content of sterile cows' milk collected by means of a collecting 

 tube. Amylase was found in each experiment, but the amount 

 present was small. Ten c.c. of milk were incubated at 37 C. for 

 from three to four hours with known quantities of starch, the re- 

 action to iodine being tested at the end of the experiment. It was 

 found that the 10 c.c. of the milk used were able to split from -ooi 

 to -002 gramme of starch in three hours at 37 C. 



Amylase in Human Milk. There appears to be universal 

 agreement among observers in regard to the presence of amylase 

 in human milk. Investigations were carried out by Moro (i, 2, 3), 

 Luzzati and Biolchini, Nobecourt and SeVin, Spolverini, Friedjung 

 and Hecht, Zaitschek, Hippius, Wohlgemuth and Strich. All these 

 observers obtained positive results, although different methods 

 were used. The amount present appears to be greater than has 

 been detected in cows' milk, but no precise figures are given by 

 any of the authors. 



Lagane (2) (1913) showed that the action of amylase in human 

 milk was greatly increased by the addition of hydrogen peroxide. 

 Amylolytic activity was also found when hydrogen peroxide was 

 added to growing heads of barley. These barley heads contained 

 no amylase but a large amount of peroxidase. Lagane therefore 

 suggests that the increased activity is due not to a direct action 

 of the amylase but to a side action on the peroxidase, which is also 

 frequently present in human milk. He believed that with the 

 addition of hydrogen peroxide the starch was split to a further 

 stage than dextrin and that some maltose was formed. He failed 

 to obtain any action with either raw cows' milk or goats' milk, 

 even with the addition of hydrogen peroxide. 



It seems therefore that amylase is usually present in human 

 milk, and has also been found in cows' milk, although not in every 

 case. It is probable that as amylase is known to be present in the 

 blood * the amylase in milk occurs as the result of nitration. 



On the Presence of a Salol-splitting Ferment in Cows' Milk and 

 in Human Milk. The discovery by Nobecourt and Merklen in 

 1901, that milk was capable of splitting salol into phenol and 

 salicylic acid, has received a good deal of attention, and has been 

 confirmed by numerous later observers. 



1 Cpi Achard and Clerc, Lcpine, Bial, Senter, Kastla and Amoss, v. Itallie, 

 Wohlgemuth and Strich. 



