ON PANCREATIC PROTEOLYSIS. 225 



increases still further the extent of retardation. Our results 

 afford no confirmation whatever of the view that bile greatly 

 aids pancreatic juice in its proteolytic action on acid fibrin. 

 Neither are we inclined to believe " that pancreatic juice, 

 plus bile, plus hydrochloric acid, can accomplish more work 

 in proteolysis than can any other known pancreatic mixture." * 

 If such were the case we fail to see why some evidence of 

 such favorable action should not appear in our results. The 

 inhibitory action of acids alone, and of acids and bile combined, 

 on pancreatic proteolysis is not, in our judgment, to be looked 

 upon as unfavorable to the normal digestive processes of the 

 small intestine. What right have we to assume that the 

 conditions existent in the normal duodenum are such as to 

 require pancreatic proteolysis to take place hi the presence of 

 acid, either free or combined? The combined or free acid 

 which passes from the stomach through the pylorus is with- 

 out doubt quickly removed by absorption or destroyed by 

 neutralization. The evidence is certainly in favor of the view 

 that the contents of the duodenum are generally alkaline. 

 This question has been admirably discussed in a recent paper 

 by Moore and Rockwood,f in which also a large number of 

 experimental data are offered, showing that in many animals 

 at least, under different forms of diet, the contents of the 

 intestine from pylorus to caecum react alkaline. In some 

 cases, to be sure, the contents closely adjacent to the pylorus 

 were found to be acid, but when this was the case the acidity 

 was usually limited to a few inches. Hence we are inclined 

 to believe that pancreatic proteolysis as it occurs in the normal 

 intestine takes place, to a great extent, in the presence of a 

 neutral or alkaline reaction, and that under such conditions 

 the proportion of bile ordinarily present is not inimical to the 

 process. 



* Rachford and Southgate, loc. cit. 



t Moore and Rockwood, Journal of Physiology, 1897, xxi, p. 373. 



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