Digestion Intestines 117 



that the bile has more or less antiseptic influence and 

 so prevents the intestinal contents from undergoing 

 putrefactive fermentation, which would have the effect 

 of greatly increasing the offensive odor of the feces. 



The pancreatic juice has a more complex function 

 in digestion than that of any other digestive fluid. It 

 is known to contain at least three distinct ferments, 

 each of which has its own peculiar effect upon each of 

 the three classes of food constituents. This juice reaches 

 the food at practically the same time as the bile. It 

 comes from the pancreas, a gland known to butchers 

 as the "sweet bread," and enters the intestine through 

 a small duct which in some animals is confluent with 

 the bile duct. It is somewhat gluey in character, of 

 alkaline reaction and has a saltish taste. 



First of all, the pancreatic juice has, in a marked 

 degree, the power of digesting proteids in an alkaline 

 medium. This power is due to a ferment known as 

 trypsin, which converts proteids to peptones, and cor- 

 responds in its function, therefore, to the pepsin of 

 the stomach. Under the influence of this ferment the 

 proteids are also, to some extent, split into simpler 

 bodies. 



The transformation of starch into sugar and other 

 soluble bodies, which ceased in the stomach, is again 

 taken up through the influence of a diastatic ferment 

 present in the pancreatic juice, and proceeds vigorously. 

 A third enzym, also present, is one that has the power 

 of splitting the neutral fats into fatty acids and glycer- 

 ine, a change which appears to have an important rela- 

 tion to the emulsionizing of fats. As before intimated, 



