DIGESTION. 377 



of the gastric pepsin. The pancreatic secretion will, how- 

 ever, redissolve the precipitated peptone, and the unchanged 

 proteids and parapeptone and the albumose, and turn the 

 three last into peptone, breaking up part of this into leucin 

 and tyrosin ; these will be absorbed as they pass along the 

 small intestine; a small quantity perhaps passing into the 

 large intestine, to be taken up there. The fats will remain 

 unchanged until they enter the small intestine, except that 

 the proteid cell-walls of the adipose tissue of the beefsteak 

 will be dissolved away. In the small intestine some of these 

 little oil masses will be in part saponified, but most will be 

 emulsified and taken up into the lacteals in that condition. 

 Gelatin, from the white fibrous tissue of the beefsteak, will 

 undergo changes in the stomach and intestine, and be dis- 

 solved and absorbed. 



The substances leaving the alimentary canal after such a 

 meal would be, primarily, the indigestible cellulose and 

 elastin, and some water. But there might also be some uriab- 

 sorbed fats, starch, and salts. To these would be added, in 

 the alimentary canal, mucin, some of the ferments of the di- 

 gestive secretions, some slightly altered bile pigments, and 

 other bodies excreted by the large intestine. 



Dyspepsia is the common name of a number of diseased 

 conditions attended with loss of appetite or troublesome 

 digestion. Being often unattended with acute pain, and if 

 it kills at all doing so very slowly, it is pre-eminently suited 

 for treatment by domestic quackery. In reality, however, 

 the immediate cause of the symptoms, and the treatment 

 called for, may vary widely; and their detection and the 

 choice of the proper remedial agents often call for more than 

 ordinary medical skill. A few of the more common forms 

 of dyspepsia may be mentioned here, with their proximate 

 causes, not in order to enable people to undertake the rash 

 experiment of dosing themselves, but to show how wide a 

 chance there is for any unskilled treatment to miss its end, 

 and do more harm than good. 



Appetite is primarily due to a condition of the mucous 

 membrane of the stomach which, in health, comes on after a 

 short fast, and stimulates.its sensory nerves; and loss of appe- 

 tite may be due to either of several causes. The stomach 

 may be apathetic and lack its' normal sensibility, so that the 

 empty condition does not act, as it normally does, as a sum*- 



