ON PEPSINE. 305 
the facts already advanced. In 1858, L. Gross employed pepsine with 
. success in the sickness incidental to pregnancy ; Barthez has ad- 
ministered it to children suffering with apepsia, in which the food 
passes through the stomach and bowels undigested ; after the exhibition 
of the pepsine, digestion took place, and the stools presented a natural 
appearance. 
Pepsine is indicated in cases were the secretions of the stomach, 
being disordered, the digestion is laborious, imperfect, or almost im- 
possible — that is to say, in gastralgia, dyspepsia, debility, convalescence 
from acute diseases, &c, when the food produces vomiting, nausea, 
diarrhoea, &c. &c. We may add, that the rapidity of its action in 
appropriate cases is so great that it forms an excellent means of diag- 
nosis ; employed at hazard in an affection of this sort, if it succeeds, in 
three or four days the cure commences ; if it fails, this short space of 
time is sufficient to show that it is not in the gastric juice that the 
physician ought to search for the cause of the malady, an advantage 
which spare much loss of valuable time and useless treatment. This 
was especially remarked by Rilliet in his practice. 
3. Its Pharmaceutical Preparation. — It is solely perfectly pure pepsine 
that is capable of being employed therapeutically. When pure, after 
being extracted and dried at 40°, it has the form of laminse or scales of 
-a lemon colour, very similar to dried albumen ; taste slightly styptic, 
and generally a slight odour of cheese when rubbed. It is extremely 
delicate, and a temperature higher than 45° C. completely destroys its 
digestive property without altering its chemical composition. It is 
impossible to employ pepsine in a state of extract for many reasons. 
First. It has been remarked that pepsine (a product of fermentation 
rather than a simple chemical body) varies extremely in energy ac- 
cording to the species of animal from which it is procured, and in the 
same animal whether taken at the time of eating or fasting, whether 
young or old, change of seasons, &c, &c, so that any two preparations 
do not resemble each other. Sometimes it is necessary to use twenty 
centigrammes to produce a given effect, another time seventy; but it is 
important to the physician to be able to administer an equal digestive 
power in the same weight, it is necessary to add to the pepsine a varia- 
ble quantity of inert matter, so that a given weight contains always an 
equal amount of digestive power. 
Secondly. When the extract is desiccated without any additional 
substance it does not retain its original form ; being hygrometric in the 
highest degree, it readily absorbs humidity from the atmosphere becomes 
viseid, soon liquefies, and consequently returns into the category of 
nitrogenous bodies, which in the presence of water and a slightly 
elevated temperature, enter into putrid decomposition. In this state 
pepsine loses all its digestive properties, and is variable from the 
augmentation of weight due to water, the medicinal properties diminisn- 
ing accordingly. 
