1894-95.] 
Absorption of Carbohydrates. 
347 
On the Absorption of Carbohydrates by the Intestinal 
Epithelium : An Experimental Inquiry into Pavy’s 
Theory of the Action of the Epithelium on Carbo- 
hydrates. By D. Noel Paton, M.D., F.R.C.P.E., and G. 
Lovell Gulland, M.D., F.R.C.P.E. {From the Research 
Laboratory of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.) 
(Read January 21, 1895.) 
One of the most important conclusions arrived at by Pavy in his 
Physiology of the Carbohydrates^ is that the intestinal epithelium 
acts as a barrier to the passage of carbohydrates into the circulation 
by converting them into fats (p. 248 et seq.). 
Although the fact that the amount of sugar in the portal blood 
varies with the amount of carbohydrates taken would seem to 
indicate that the intestinal epithelium passes sugar on to the blood 
for the most part unchanged, the well-known observations on the 
conversion of carbohydrates to fats in the animal body suggest at 
least the possibility that such a change as that maintained by Pavy 
may take place. 
The experimental data on which he bases his conclusions are, 
however, eminently unsatisfactory. Because he finds that, in 
rabbits fed upon oats, the intestinal epithelium contains fat 
globules, and the lacteals a milky fluid, he concludes that the fats 
are formed from the carbohydrates of the oats, although the oats 
used are said to have contained 5 per cent, of fats — about as much 
as is contained in moderately fat ox flesh. The presence of such an 
amount of fat entirely vitiates the conclusion that the fat seen in 
the epithelial cells is derived from the carbohydrates. 
The following experiments seem very clearly to indicate that the 
fats seen in the epithelium in Pavy’s experiments are derived from 
the fats of the oats and not from the carbohydrates. 
In these experiments the following methods were employed : — 
