82 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess. 
It will be seen that those tissues which have the greatest power 
in digesting fibrin correspond pretty closely in the different groups, 
and moreover correspond in great part to those tissues which 
yielded an extract that caused abundant conversion of starch 
into sugar. 
(d) What is their Action on Fibrin in an Alkaline 
Solution 1 
The only cases in which this occurred were : — 
Rabbit. 
Child. 
Adult. 
Post-mortem. 
Pathological. 
Small Int. 
Large Int. 
Pancreas 
Small Int. 
Large Int. 
Pancreas 
Liver 
Large Int. 
Pancreas 
These results open up two questions : — 
(1) As the reactions are so uniformly present in the intestines, 
and in no other tissues except pancreas and liver, do the 
results depend on organisms with their liberated ferments, 
or on an enzyme that is present in the tissues of a nature 
similar to trypsin of the pancreatic juice 1 ? 
(2) Is the proteolytic ferment of the pancreatic juice soluble in 
glycerine, provided that the results do not depend upon 
organisms ? 
I do not intend to discuss these questions here. Still, with 
the exception of the large intestine obtained post-mortem, in 
which tissue organisms are likely to be present, I do not see 
how the other results can depend on bacteria, as the tissues 
were in every instance cleansed in running water before extraction, 
and were absolutely fresh. The question might have been settled 
had antiseptics been used ; consequently, I am unable to oppose 
the views of Kuhne,* and his school, or to agree with those of 
Hufner, but I think it probable that even with the use of anti- 
septics the same results would have probably occurred. 
With regard to the second question, there is not the slightest 
doubt that the glycerine which was used extracted a small 
* Lehrb. d. Physiol, diem . , 1868, S. 120. 
