PEPSINE. 
341 
but it was found that the sugar was, after some ten or twelve 
days, converted into glucose, and finally into lactic acid. 
A solution of pepsine will keep any length of time, provided 
air be excluded ; but, in the presence of air, decomposition 
soon sets in : and I have found that the best form to keep it 
in is that of a powder, as originally proposed by M. Boudault. 
It may be taken in this form very conveniently between two 
slices of bread, or in the first spoonful of soup, which, 
however, should not exceed the temperature of the body; the 
dose being about fifteen grains. 
The gastric juice possesses all the characters of a diluted 
acid ; it attacks iron filings, and decomposes the alkaline 
carbonates, and it appears to me that this fact would justify 
a much more extended use of the lactates than at present 
prevails, for such preparations as ferrum radactum, ferri 
carbonas saccharatum, mistura ferri, &c., must be resolved 
into lactates soon after they reach the stomach, and that, too, 
at the expense of one of the most important constituents of 
the gastric juice. 
Mr. Squire has notified, in letters to the c Lancet/ and 
6 Medical Gazette/ the existence of a spurious preparation of 
pepsine, for distinguishing which he gives the following 
tests : — 
True Pepsine. 
Abundant precipitate \ 
(Peptate of lead) J * * 
Abundant precipitate "1 
(Tannate of Pepsine) J 
Precipitates the 1 
pepsine j 
Test. False Pepsine . 
Acetate of lead . . Slight cloudiness. 
Tannin Ditto. 
Alcohol No effect. 
The solution of true pepsine is strongly acid to litmus, 
whilst the false is only so in a slight degree ; but more than 
all, M. Boudault’s preparation does what it professes to do; 
fifteen grains digests its drachm of dried fibrine, while the 
spurious compound is entirely destitute of this property. 
- — Lancet. 
The most serious contamination of pepsine is that con- 
tained in No. 3, namely, strychnia ! For what purpose this 
is introduced we cannot imagine; but the circumstance of 
keeping such company is likely to cause alarm, and thus to 
create a prejudice unfavorable to the general introduction of 
pepsine into dyspeptic society . — Pharmaceutical Journal . 
