EXPERIMENTS ON DIGESTION. 
219 
grains, and, in summer, green meat of all kinds, are all proper, and 
most so during convalescence. 
Prevalent sore-throat and troublesome cough are to be 
relieved — should the ammonia liniment prove unavailing, — by the 
application of a blister to the throttle, or, what in urgent cases is 
most speedily effectual, a mustard-plaster, which may be sponged off 
after an hour’s time, and by so doing the hair and skin preserved. 
Further Observations. — -No exercise is to be allowed: on 
the contrary, let quietude be enjoined. There are cases in which 
steaming the nostrils is apt to create irritation and much annoyance, 
which would be a sufficient reason to omit this, in general, very 
beneficial practice. In respect to row'els under the jaws, and setons 
through the skin of the throttle, I am of opinion that they are not 
adapted to recent cases, or those in which any very active inflam- 
mation or fever is manifested; but to such cases alone as come 
under the denomination of chronic , and, as such, are likely to prove 
tedious and of long duration. 
EXPERIMENTS ON DIGESTION. 
By Professors TlEDEMANN and Gmelin, of the University of 
Heidelberg. 
THE PANCREATIC JUICE. 
There is no animal fluid which remained so long unknown as 
the pancreatic juice. The want of a reservoir in which it could 
accumulate, and, more particularly, the deep situation of the gland 
which furnished it, afforded almost insurmountable obstacles to the 
experimenters who wished to procure it from the living animal. 
Francis de Boe was the first who maintained that it was acid, and 
he founded on this a theory of its use, which gave rise to long 
discussion in the latter part of the seventeenth century. R. de 
Degraef, a disciple and partisan of Boe, made, in 1664, the first 
successful experiment for the obtainment of the pancreatic juice 
from a living dog. 
He opened the duodenum — introduced a small quill into the pan- 
creatic duct, and caused the fluid to fall into a little bottle placed 
beneath. He thus collected a considerable quantity of the juice. 
He found it almost limpid, and a little viscid. It had sometimes 
an agreeable acid taste; at other times it was saline; oftenest 
there was a mingled saline and acid flavour. Theories respecting 
the use of this fluid, conformable to these experiments, had pre- 
viously been advanced, and might have had some influence on his 
opinion. 
