202 PROGRESS OE VETERINARY SCIENCE AND ART. 
gruel for a few days. Subsequently a large amount of serous 
fluid was discharged through the openings made for the 
introduction of the seton ; it, however, soon ceased. The 
sutures also came away in due course, leaving but little ap- 
pearance of the original injury. 
Contemporary Progress of Veterinary Science 
and Art. 
By John Gamgee, 
Professor of Anatomy and Physiology in the Edinburgh 
Veterinary College. 
(i Continued from p. 1 55.) 
Pancreatic Secretion. — We last month recorded 
Bernard’s views on the physiology of the pancreas — Colin’s 
article on this subject in his e Physiologie Comparee’ is based 
on original experiments performed chiefly on the ox. Colin 
finds that the pancreatic secretion is irregularly intermittent, 
and it appears that it is poured into the intestine in largest 
quantities at the time and a little after rumination becomes 
suspended. It is excessively difficult to ascertain the normal 
state of this secretion, and the gland’s function is disturbed 
under the slightest influences. 
Comparing the biliary and pancreatic secretion, as Colin 
has done in experiments on the pig, it is found that the 
pancreatic juice is formed in larger quantities when the bile 
is not actively secreted. 
During the first minutes after the duct of the pancreas has 
been opened, the fluid is as limpid as water, and slightly 
viscid, and its viscosity augments with cooling, but in the 
course of a few hours is not observable. Tiedemann, Gmelin, 
and Schulze have found that its reaction was acid ; but it is 
constantly alkaline even after it has commenced to undergo 
decomposition. Its taste is saltish, and its odour not cha- 
racteristic. In the dog it is very dense and coagulable directly 
after the pancreatic fistula is formed, but in the horse and pig 
it is not so. 
Colin is inclined to look on differences in degree of lim- 
pidity and power to coagulate as dependent on the greater 
or less activity of the secretion, and that it is really the same 
in all animals. 
