1884.] Physiology. 643 
which has the power of converting cane sugar into a carbohy- 
which reduces Fehling’s solution, but does so less completely 
than grape sugar; this product,as well as that previously described, 
has about the same reducing power as maltose. The stomach in 
animals generally contains much less of the cane sugar ferment than 
the intestine. This ferment appears to be contained not in the 
nds of the mucous membrane, but in the superficial epithelium 
of that coat. (It may be remarked that the cane-sugar-converting 
power of the mucus secreted by the lining epithelium of the 
stomach has long been known.) 
3. This conversion of cane sugar into a maltose-like body oc- 
curs under physiological conditions, for when cane sugar is injected 
into the stomach of a living animal, if the portal blood be ex- 
amined twenty or thirty minutes afterward, it is found to contain 
no cane sugar, but a carbohydrate like that produced from it by 
the action of the ferment already described. 
Human Paysiotocy, sy Henry Power, F. R. C. S.—This is an 
excellent little book of its kind, but the kind is very poor. 
contains statements of a great number of physiological facts 
condensed within a small space, and will therefore be welcomed 
the student who is cramming for an examination. But the 
teacher-physiologist who satisfies himself with the bare men- 
tion of facts, allows his subject to lose its chief importance as a 
discipline to the reasoning powers, and is liable to eventually 
miss his aim altogether, for isolated facts are with difficulty 
red when not strongly bound together into chains of 
Cause and effect, 
Tue FIBRIN-FERMENT.—It is a question of considerable interest 
. 
as to whether those peculiar bodies known as animal ferments, 
wy are of simpler chemical composition. Messrs. Lea and Green 
body that there is little doubt that the ferment is a non-proteid 
the clot ‘twenty-four hours, washing the clot until it is colorless; 
days j is then pressed, rinsed and extracted in the cold for two 
: ulation 3 p. c. sodic chloride. This extract produces rapid coag- 
freed. of diluted blood plasma, and it may be nearly completely 
> à watery  Proteids if a large amount of strong alcohol be added; 
Marked fer tract made from the precipitate thus formed will have 
o nt action —Journal of Physiology, vol. w., No. 6. 
faa 
