EXTRACTS FROM GERMAN PAPERS. 
acid and 3.2 per cent, of sugar after seven hours of digestion. 
The lactic acid ferment is considerably weaker. After one hour’s 
digestion 0.1 per cent., and after seven hours’ digestion 0.2 per 
cent, of lactic acid were formed. The albuminoid ferment dis¬ 
solved from the insoluble albumen of the oats about 0.5 per cent, 
in three hours, which would be one per cent, in from six to seven 
hours. In pulp made from the ground oats and water which had 
been subjected to a temperature of 212 degrees Fahrenheit, no 
lactic acid, no sugar and no solution of albumen were found. A 
0.4 per cent, solution of lactic acid in water did not destroy the 
ferments or cause any change, but a 0.2 per cent, solution of 
hydrochloric acid almost entirely stopped the action of the fer¬ 
ments. Ice cold water stops fermentation as long as the water is 
kept cold, no sugar or lactic acid is found, but as the temperature 
rises the ferments commence to act. 
These facts in relation to the diastacti ferment in oats are of 
practical and important value for the proper nourishment of man 
and beast in diseases of the organs of digestion. Patients suffering 
from imperfect digestion ought to receive the vegetable food in 
a raw state in preference to cooked. This accounts, to some 
extent, for the success of the vegetarians in the treatment of 
catarrh of the stomach, in liver troubles and in similar diseases. 
The food taken into the stomach in a raw state undergoes, in 
spite of the diminished quantity of gastric juice, a normal fer¬ 
mentative and digestive process, produced through the ferments 
in the raw food. If the food is taken in a cooked state, then it 
is subject to abnormal fermentations in the organs of digestion, 
which are apt to increase catarrh of the stomach. By cooking 
food, some nutritive matter is certainly rendered more soluble, 
and even dissolved; cooking is to some extent a predigestion, but 
nothing is gained by it for the patient. We know that by intro¬ 
ducing dextrin and sugar, such as are formed by boiling or baking 
amylaceous articles of food, fermentation occurs a great deal 
quicker and more easily than if the starch were introduced in a 
raw state. 
The grain eaters, a sect of vegetarians, adopt the habit of 
chewing the grain thoroughly, which is consequently well mixed 
