Am.  Jour.  Pharm  ) 
Mar.,  1877.  { 
Sugar-coated  Pills, 
IT5 
From  the  duodenum  it  passes  on  through  the  remainder  of  the  small 
intestines,  and  through  this  long  and  turbulent  route  of  about  twenty- 
five  feet  of  intestinal  tube  it  is  subjected  to  the  warmth  and  solvent 
action  of  the  secretions  and  fluids  of  the  canal  and  the  attrition  and 
peristaltic  movement  of  the  bowels,  which  promotes  rapid  solution  and 
disintegration.1 
From  the  small  intestine  the  pill  passes  into  the  large  intestines,  and 
•even  here  it  is  confronted  with  fluids  destructive  to  its  entirety  ;  for  it 
is  the  opinion  of  some  physiologists  (see  "  Kirk's  and  Paget's  Physi- 
ology, "  page  199)  that  the  caecum  also  secretes  an  acid  fluid  similar  to 
the  gastric  juice,  capable  of  digesting  substances  which  have  eluded  or 
resisted  the  action  of  the  stomach  and  passed  unchanged  through  the 
small  intestines.  If  digestion  and  absorption  did  not  take  place  to 
some  extent  in  the  lower  portion  of  the  intestinal  canal,  what  would 
become  of  the  excremental  matter  that  would  accumulate  in  the  lower 
bowels  of  persons  who  suffer  from  obstinate  and  protracted  constipa- 
tion, who  are  sometimes  for  weeks  or  even  months  at  a  time  without 
a  passage,  yet  who  diurnally  take  their  usual  quantity  of  food.  The 
average  quantity  of  excrementitious  matter  daily  ejected  by  an  adult 
is  estimated  by  physiologists  at  from  four  to  six  ounces.  There  must 
certainly  be  some  provision  made  by  nature  in  the  lower  portion  of  the 
intestines  for  the  solution,  or  reduction  to  an  absorbable  condition  of 
the  large  amount  of  solid  matter  which  would  accumulate  in  protracted 
cases  of  torpid  bowels.  Of  course,  as  is  well  known,  about  three- 
fourths  of  this  matter  is  of  an  aqueous  character,  which  may  be  grad- 
ually absorbed  by  long  contact  with  the  mucous  coat  of  the  bowels  ; 
but  there  must  still  remain,  in  some  cases,  a  large  bulk  of  solid  and 
•these  secretions  has  in  its  separate  state."  ("  Carpenter's  Principles  of  Human  Phy- 
siology," page  432.) 
In  reference  to  the  digestive  power  of  the  fluids  of  the  intestinal  canal,  Dr 
Dalton  [loc.  cit.,  page  145)  says:  "Although  the  separate  actions  of  these  digestive 
fluids,  however,  commence  at  different  parts  of  the  alimentary  canal,  they  afterward 
go  on  simultaneously  in  the  small  intestines  5  and  the  changes  which  take  place 
here,  and  which  constitute  the  process  of  intestinal  digestion,  form  at  the  same  time 
one  of  the  most  complicated  and  one  of  the  most  important  parts  of  the  whole 
digestive  function." 
1  "  The  process  of  digestion  and  conversion  are  probably  continued  during  the 
entire  transit  of  the  alimentary  matter  along  the  small  intestine,  and  at  the  same 
time  the  products  of  that  conversion  are  gradually  being  withdrawn  by  absorbent 
action."    (Carpenter,  loc.  cit.t  page  433.) 
