254 DIGESTION OF NITROGENOUS MATTERS. 
indeed, are we informed which of the intestines, small or 
large, it is which become strangulated. 
I hope the remarks I have made may call forth a discus- 
sion on this affection ; and if so, I can give several supposed 
cases of it in proof of myown assertions, should such be needed, 
and I feel assured that there are many other cattle-practition- 
ers who will bear out my statements. Spasm, and even partial 
introsusception of the bowels, are not unfrequent cases in 
the ox, and many of these have doubtless been treated for 
this formidable disease — gut-tie. I once knew a young man 
who operated on an ox, and found the cord, as he thought, 
and this he broke with the fingers, but unfortunately it 
proved to be one of the ureters. I need not say that the 
mistake was as fatal to his reputation as it proved to be 
to the animal. 
Facts and Observations. 
ON A LITTLE KNOWN FUNCTION OF THE PANCREAS, IN THE 
DIGESTION OF NITROGENOUS MATTERS. 
By M. L. Corvisart. 
Purkinje and Pappenheim affirmed (1839) that they had 
extracted from the pancreas a liquid endowed, like the gastric 
juice, with the property of dissolving nitrogenous aliments; 
hitherto it had not been demonstrated, that a true digestive 
transformation was effected. 
The pancreatic juice, in digesting the albuminoid aliments, 
operates on them a transformation identical with, or analogous 
to, that which the stomach produces. But the liquid of the 
pancreas acts only on that part of the food which has es- 
caped the gastric digestion. The portion of the food trans- 
formed by the juice of the stomach, is a definitive product , 
on which the pancreas has no action. 
When the two digestive liquids are separated, they exer- 
cise their function to the utmost, and thus double the pro- 
duct of the digestion. If they are found in the pure state, 
the two digestions are no longer exerted ; so far from the di- 
gested product being doubled, it is reduced to nothing. The 
two ferments (pepsine, pancreatine) are mutually destroyed. 
In the normal state, nature prevents this conflict by three 
