Merycism Regarded in the Light of Atavic Tendency. 525 
The method pursued in the investigation of the digestive 
chemism was the following: — 
Having ascertained that no acid of any kind had been taken 
for at least sixteen hours, Ewald’s test breakfast consisting 
of thirty-five grams of dry white bread, and one-third of a 
liter of warm water, was administered on an empty stomach, 
and the latter expressed one hour afterward. The expressa 
were filtered, the residue weighed, the filtrate measured and 
subjected to an analysis. For the sake of simplicity, I place 
the conditions or substances tested for, in juxtaposition to 
the reagents or tests employed : 
Reaction = litmus paper. 
Free acid = tropaeolin solution. 
Lactates, lactic and fatty acids = Uffelmann’s reagent. 
Acetic acid = by its odor. 
Acid salts = Leo’s method. 
Free hydrochloric acid = Guenzburg’s reagent. 
Total acidity = titration with an empirical potassium 
hydroxide solution (lec = 0.002532 g. hydrochloric acid), 
the potassium hydroxide having been previously purified by 
the Barium method. Phenol-Phtallein was used as indicator. 
Bile = Gmelin’s test. 
Starch and Erythrodextrin = Lugol’s solution. 
Maltose = Copper reduction test. 
Thus far, the examination was conducted pretty much on 
lines laid out in Dr. Ewald’s treatise on Diseases of the 
Digestive Tract. With regard to the manner of ascertaining 
the presence of the different proteid substances in the stomach 
contents, I was impelled to deviate from the course advocated 
and commended by the professor of Berlin. On pages 42 and 
43 of the authorized American edition (1892), and on pages 
59, 60 and 61 of the third German edition (1893), appears a 
Statement reiterated three times in rapid succession, to 
the effect that syntonin when present in the stomach con- 
tents in solution is coagulable by heat. This is one of 
those remarkable slips, which even the greatest of mortals are 
Sometimes guilty of, the more remarkable as it occurs with 
regard to a matter of extremely fundamantal nature. If an 
eminent chemist had asserted and re-asserted in a treatise on 
