194 
FACTS AND OBSERVATIONS. 
Wittich criticises a statement made by Ranke in his Phy¬ 
siologic, viz: “The bile of the pig, as Nasse has shown, 
possesses the power of converting starch into sugar. Neither 
the bile of other animals nor of man possesses this property.” 
He points out that he and Jacobson had already shown that 
this was not the case. The difficulty in regard to human 
bile is the possibility of obtaining it quite fresh. Yon Wittich 
has been fortunate enough to obtain bile, perfectly fresh, and 
in sufficient quantity for experimentation, from a patient 
labouring under a biliary fistula opening externally. 
Careful calculation of the amount poured out gave an 
average of 22*2 c.c. per hour, and 532*8 c.c. in the twenty- 
four hours. 
Boiled starch mixed with from twenty to thirty drops of 
bile, and left for an hour at the ordinary temperature, gave a 
distinct sugar reaction with copper sulphate. The bile, 
mixed with absolute alcohol as long as it exhibited turbidity, 
left on filtration a residue which, on being treated with 
glycerin, yielded an extract which after twenty-four hours, 
possessed an energetic diastatic action. Still more active 
was the alcoholic precipitate of the extract dissolved in water. 
Human bile therefore appears undoubtedly to contain an 
active diastatic ferment.—D. F .—Journal of the Chemical 
Peptic Action of the Pyloric Glands. —Consi¬ 
derable difference of opinion exists amongst physiologists in 
regard to the action of the secretion formed by the glands of 
the pyloric region of the stomach. On the one hand, Fick 
and Friedinger consider that their secretion has no digestive 
properties, whilst, on the other, Ebstein and Griitzner main¬ 
tain that it possesses in a very high degree the power of 
converting albumen into peptones. Y. Wittich has just 
published in the last part of Pfliiger’s Archiv (i., 1873) the 
results of his investigations, which coincide with those of 
Fick, and are opposed to those of Ebstein. V. Wittich 
does not think the weight of albumen dissolved can be taken 
as a measure of the amount of pepsin in the fluid, since a 
disproportionately small quantity of pepsin will dissolve an 
inordinately large amount of albumen. He is rather disposed 
to rely on a comparison of the rapidity of action as a means 
of estimating the amount of pepsin present, the temperature 
and other conditions being alike; and his experiments per¬ 
formed on pigs and rabbits have satisfied him that in these 
animals at least the pyloric glands furnish no pepsin. —The 
Lancet . 
