7 0 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess. 
might account for the greater rapidity in growth of tumours in 
certain tissues than in others. 
The only reference in literature which I have found bearing on 
this subject can be found in Halliburton * and Sheridan Lea’s f 
books, which refer to the work of Nasse and Briicke more 
especially. Halliburton says, “Briicke has shown that muscle, 
in common with most of the tissues of the body, contains a small 
quantity of pepsin ; ” and again, “ 0. Hasse showed that muscle 
juice also contains an amylolytic ferment, which he supposes to 
act in the transformation of glycogen into sugar after death. I 
(Halliburton) have made a few experiments on this subject, and 
can fully confirm Hasse’s statement of the existence of this fer- 
ment ; ” and again, he says, “ We have already seen that such a 
ferment (diastatic ferment) can be obtained from muscle, and it 
seems that diastatic activity is present in all living proteids.” 
Sheridan Lea, when writing of ptyalin, states While occur- 
ring chiefly and characteristically in saliva, a similar enzyme may 
be obtained in minute amount, but fairly constantly from almost 
any tissue or fluid of the body, more particularly in the case of 
the pig.” 
In an article by Briicke, J entitled “Beitrage zur Lehre von der 
Verdauung,” there is a paragraph at the close entitled “ Die 
verdauende Substanz im Bleische.” 
This is the subject evidently referred to by Halliburton, 
although Briicke may have described his results more fully in 
other papers. He showed that the juice of flesh when treated 
with water, and subjected to the same ether and cholesterin 
process that he used in carrying out his experiments for the 
isolation of pepsin from the mucous membrane of the stomach, 
had decided digestive properties. The digestion was noticeable 
in from five to six hours, and in the course of the next day all 
fibrin had been completely digested. He confirmed his results 
by a slightly different method. He obtained the juice from 
4 lbs. of ox beef, and treated this with phosphate of lime. The 
filtrate was dissolved in weak hydrochloric acid. He obtained 
* Text-Book of Chemical Physiology and Pathology, pp. 412 and 549. 
X “The Chemical Basis of the Animal Body,” Foster’s Physiology, vol. v. 
p. 56. 
X Sitzung. Akad. der Wissensch., Band xliii. Abth. 2 (1861). 
