THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. [November 19, 1870. 
401 
Mr. Long to the author, from which we give the follow¬ 
ing extracts :— 
“Following up the subject of our conversations some 
time since, I have been making experiments on pancrea¬ 
tine obtained directly from the fresh pancreas of the calf. 
The result has been quite what might have been ex¬ 
pected from a priori reasoning, as you will see from the 
subjoined statements. 
“ Some difficulty was experienced in obtaining the so¬ 
lution of pancreatine in an eligible form for administra¬ 
tion ; but at last I succeeded in producing what as closely 
as possible represents the digestive fluids found in man. 
It is composed of pepsine and pancreatine in suitable 
proportions, using for the former a solution of pepsine 
introduced by me some time ago, and adding the solution 
of pancreatine as now prepared. 
“In the experiments made to test its effects a very 
curious result was observed. Meat—beef and mutton— 
digested in pepsine alone was found to be entirely dis¬ 
solved with the exception of the fat, which floated as a 
film on the surface, and this film was entirely emulsified 
when a proper quantity of pancreatine was added, and 
the usual conditions as to temperature, etc., attended to. 
This is exactly what we might expect, reasoning from 
known physiological principles. 
“ Pepsine in an effectual form has been a great boon ; 
but, as I have shown above, it will not digest the oily or 
fatty aliments ; failing thus to supply the system with the 
substances vitally necessary in strumous diseases. It is 
obvious how desirable the action of this fluid will be as 
an addendum to the use of cod-liver oil. 
“ The pancreatic emulsion has never seemed to me the 
nicest or most eligible mode of effecting what is desired. 
It is nauseous to the taste of many, and often keeps 
badly; the quantity of mutton suet employed, which 
may be supposed to be all the fatty matter the pan¬ 
creatine present is capable of emulsifying, is not as much 
as might be desirable in many cases. In some, suet at 
all may not be the most suitable form of fat. The fluid 
I now describe is very palatable, and will keep almost 
any time. It may be given with any kind of food. My 
experiments were made with fat mutton-chops and rich 
beef-steaks, as typical aliments, with most satisfactory 
results. 
“ The first experiments, thrice repeated, were made 
with muriatic acid, water, and the combined solution, to 
represent the gastric juice and pancreatic secretion. 
The second, with solution of pepsine alone, with acid 
and water, followed by the addition of the plain pan¬ 
creatic solution after an interval of two hours. Both 
were entirely satisfactory; but the latter were pecu¬ 
liarly interesting in 4 a physiological point of view, as 
stated above, and tended to show the exact part played by 
each fluid in the animal economy. But as the adminis¬ 
tration of two fluids in succession would be troublesome 
in practice, and be scarcely attended to by patients (at 
all times averse to trouble), I have thought it desirable 
to .mix the two in one fluid. This has the advantage of 
being quite agreeable, as liquor of pepsine always is; 
while the taste of the liquor of pancreatine is entirely 
concealed by the former. Some medical friends of mine 
reported most favourably of it, after trial in practice. 
“ The experiments in the laboratory were as fol¬ 
lows :— 
“ No. 1.—Mutton (fat and lean about equal parts), one 
ounce ; water, .one ounce and a half; muriatic acid, fifteen 
minims; solution of pancreatine and pepsine, one drachm. 
Digested at 100 3 for four hours, this was converted into 
a homogeneous pulp, and, when diluted with a little 
water, presented quite a chylous appearance. 
“No. 2.—Beef (fat and lean), an ounce and a half. 
Treated in the same way, with same result, the pulp 
being much deeper in colour. 
“ Nos. 3 and 4.—I then operated on the same quan¬ 
tities of each, first digesting with pepsine solution alone, 
as intimated above, and then adding the liquor pancrea¬ 
tine—keeping up the heat. In these latter experiments 
the result seemed more perfect, but, as I have said, the 
same procedure would be rather inconvenient in prac¬ 
tice. 
“The results were found to be identical in three suc¬ 
cessive experiments, at intervals of several weeks.” 
THE PRESENT STATUS OF POTASH PRODUCTION.* 
From being the most abundant and cheapest of the 
alkalies, potash has rapidly passed to the position of the 
most expensive; and one of the chief problems in tech¬ 
nical chemistry is comprised in the efforts to lessen its 
consumption by the substitution of other bases, or to 
cheapen and increase its production by the utilization of 
the abundant raw materials offered by the mineral king¬ 
dom. The first step has, in many instances, been suc¬ 
cessfully accomplished by the employment of soda, am¬ 
monia or lime, as basic factors to accomplish a given 
result previously and almost exclusively brought about 
by potash. Thus, the pure potash alum has almost dis¬ 
appeared from the markets, its place being assumed by a 
chemical equivalent in which at least one-half of the 
original potash is replaced by ammonia—an ammonia 
potash alum. So also the manufacture of the somewhat 
useful chlorate of potash was formerly effected by the 
passage of chlorine gas into potash solution,—a process 
resulting in the production of five equivalents of the 
much less valuable and less useful chloride of potassium 
for each equivalent of the desired salt. Now, a mixture 
of lime and potash is employed, and chlorate of potash 
and chloride of calcium are produced. These two salts 
are much more readily separated by crystallization than 
were the two products of the old method; at the same 
time a great saving of potash is effected, 46 parts of 
caustic alkali producing nearly 323 parts of chlorate, 
where formerly upwards of 336 were required for the 
same operation. 
In spite of these and similar substitutions, potash be¬ 
comes scarcer. We cannot get rid of its use entirely. 
There are many important technical operations in -which 
it is, as yet, a sine qua non, and some in which it must 
always remain such. In the production of a pure crys¬ 
tal glass soda cannot replace potash, since it imparts a 
greenish hue to the product. Nitrate of soda cannot 
be substituted for saltpetre in the manufacture of gun¬ 
powder, though it has already taken off the burden from 
the nitrate of potash in very many of the operations of 
the manufacturing chemist. In the formation of the 
simple and compound cyanides, potash will probably 
always be a requisite. 
Hence, new sources of supply must be sought after 
and be made available. The slow process by which the 
vegetable kingdom extracts and assimilates the valuable 
potash from mineral matter must be replaced by the 
quicker changes of art operating on the same substances. 
The original forests of America—one of the great centres 
from which potash has been sent into connnerce—are so 
rapidly disappearing or finding such manifold uses and 
demands for their woods and timbers that the old source 
of supply and means of production—that from the inci¬ 
neration of terrestrial vegetation—are fast losing their 
prominence by the supersedure of new raw materials and 
new methods of manipulation. We procure potash now 
by the incineration of marine and littoral plants, as well 
as those of the land. We derive it from inorganic na¬ 
ture by the decomposition of feldspar and other potash- 
bearing minerals, and by the treatment of certain mate¬ 
rial from the rock-salt mines of Prussia. Even the 
animal kingdom has been placed under contribution 
towards the same end. Let us examine into these several 
sources, and arrive at the present status of potash pro¬ 
duction the -world over, omitting, however, the old source 
* Abstract of a paper in the Scientific American, by Pro¬ 
fessor Charles P. Williams. 
