680 
MR. J. N. LANGLEY ON THE HISTOLOGY AND 
carmine-fibrin. Without warming a coloration = YI. of GrIttzner’s scale is produced 
in eight minutes, and 1-| cub. centims. of the fibrin is dissolved in three-quarters 
of an hour. 
Moreover, if the pepsin were simply absorbed, how could we explain the enormous 
difference in pepsin-content which exists between the latter part of the mucous mem¬ 
brane with oxyntic glands, and the adjoining mucous membrane with pyloric glands ? 
For whilst the acid-extract of the mucous membrane of the median portion of the 
stomach produces a coloration =VI. of the scale in eight minutes, a similar extract 
of the pyloric mucous membrane does not produce a trace of coloration with 2 cub. 
centims. of carmine-fibrin in three-quarters of an hour. 
In favour of the view that the gastric glands do not produce pepsin, Swiecicki 
adduces the following experiment:—He ligatured the oesophagus, and introduced into 
the stomach bits of flesh through an opening in the duodenum ; in twenty-four hours 
the flesh was not digested, and contained only traces of pepsin. 
The experiment seems to me to contain many sources of error ; the ligaturing of the 
oesophagus seriously interferes with the peristaltic movements of the stomach ; nothing 
is said of collecting the jelly-like masses of mucin which are secreted after such an 
operation, and which contain the greater part of the pepsin. 
I have not repeated this experiment, because of the difficulty of removing com¬ 
pletely the contents of the stomach and the consequent impossibility of deducing any¬ 
thing from a positive result were it obtained. But the following experiments, I think, 
show clearly that the gastric glands do form pepsin. Having destroyed the fore¬ 
brain in a Frog, I lay bare the stomach, and ligature it a little below the cardia, then 
cut open the stomach longitudinally, and remove all mucus and fluid from the mucous 
membrane. On the mucous membrane a piece of sponge is then placed. Several 
Frogs are treated in the same manner. In two, four, six, and eight hours respectively 
the sponge and the mucus that has been secreted by the stomach is tested for pepsin. 
Within certain limits the longer the sponge has been left in contact with the mucous 
membrane the greater is the amount of pepsin found. 
The oxyntic glands, then, form pepsin. We have seen that the oxyntic glands 
contain granules, although smaller than those contained by the oesophageal glands. 
Have the granules in the former a connexion similar to that which exists in the 
latter'? There seems to me to be little doubt that they have. Reasons exactly 
similar to those which lead us to refer the ferment produced by the pancreatic and 
oesophageal gland-cells to the granules contained by them lead us also to refer to the 
granules of the oxyntic gland-cells the ferment produced by the oxyntic glands. As 
in the oesophagus so in the stomach—the fewer and smaller the granules contained by 
the cells the less is the amount of ferment contained by a definite weight of dried 
mucous membrane. 
There is another point that deserves mention. We have seen that the anterior 
oxyntic glands contain, as a rule, somewhat larger granules than the posterior, and, 
