220 
EXPERIMENTS ON DIGESTION. 
Florent Schuyl, also the pupil of Boe, repeated the experiment 
of Degraef, and pretended that he found an acid in the pancreatic 
juice which he had collected; and he supported this by the fact, 
that he had coagulated milk with this fluid. 
The researches of Wepfer, Pechlin, Brunner, and J. Bohn, did 
not confirm the assertions of Degraef and Schuyl According to 
them, the pancreatic juice was turbid, white, not acid, but having 
the same slight saline flavour which lymph had. 
The experimentalists that followed did not agree with regard to 
the nature of this fluid. Yiridet said that he had found it acid in 
several animals, and that it had sensibly reddened the tincture of 
turnsole. Heuermann, on the contrary, denied that it was capable 
of reddening this tincture. Fordyce found that, in the dog, it was 
colourless, aqueous, and salt. Finally, Majendie found the pan- 
creatic juice of a dog slightly yellow, inodorous, and possessing 
a saline taste. He added, that it was alkaline, that it coagulated 
by means of heat, and that, in birds, it was altogether albuminous, 
or, at least, when exposed to heat it coagulated like albumen. 
Later, the most celebrated physiologists and medical men, as 
Hoffman, Stahl, Boerhaave, Haller, and others, have contended 
that the pancreatic j uice differs very little from saliva. This opinion 
is adopted by the most distinguished physiologists of the present 
In this state of things we must not be surprised at the numerous 
and strange hypotheses that have been adopted in order to explain 
the office which it performs in the digestive function. Some ima- 
gine that it separates the chyle from the excrementitious portion 
of the intestinal contents; others suppose that it moderates the 
acridity of the bile ; while others assert that it delays the passage 
of the chyme until it has dissolved those portions of the aliment 
that were not digested in the stomach, and contributes to their 
assimilation. The great Haller, after having wearied himself with 
conjectures on its uses, says, that it may effect many more purposes 
than are yet known; and, in more modern times, Magendie has 
confessed that it is impossible to say what is the real function of 
this fluid. All these circumstances have determined us to collect 
the pancreatic juice as it flows from the living animal, and to sub- 
ject it to chemical analysis. 
I. The pancreatic fluid in the dog . — The subject of the experi- 
ment was a large butcher’s dog. After having placed him on his 
back, and secured him there, we made a longitudinal incision in 
the direction of the linea alba, between the inferior extremity of 
the sternum and the umbilicus. Then, by means of the fore- 
finger hooked, the duodenum and the head of the pancreas were 
drawn out of the abdomen, and laid on a piece of linen, the 
