24  Solution  of  Pepsin  and  Pancreatin.  {^'^^i^iXm^' 
medicinal  power  of  drugs.  It  is  admitted  at  once  that  direct  heat  has  a 
tendency  to  injure  all  solutions  of  organic  matter  ;  but  when  the  water  bath  (or 
water  bath  still)  are  employed,  they  embody  every  requisite,  except  in  case 
of  very  volatile  substances,  as  the  temperature  of  the  former  may  be  regulated 
when  necessary  as  low  as  120°  Fahr.,  and  the  latter  never  exceeds  212°  Fahr.; 
but  even  these  are  laid  under  ban  by  some  of  the  writers  of  the  later  times. 
Some  of  these  reforms  are  certainly  to  be  deprecated  as  a  decline  in  the 
practice  of  our  art,  and  while  we  shall  hail  the  advent  of  any  process  which 
shall  really  substitute  evaporation  in  fluid  extracts,  we  believe  a  more  serious 
attention  on  the  part  of  the  fathers  in  pharmacy  to  the  improvement  of  the 
means  of  conaminution  m  the  apothecary's  shop  will  result  in  real  progress  in 
the  art  of  extracting  drugs. — Editor  Am.  Jour.  Pharm.] 
A  COMBINED  SOLUTION  OF  PEPSINE  AND  PANCREATINE.* 
The  value  of  pepsine  as  a  remedial  agent  in  cases  of  indigestion  is 
generally  admitted,  but  experience  has  proved  that  it  is  only  in  cer- 
tain forms  of  indigestion  that  it  is  of  use. 
Food  is  divided  into  two  classes,  nitrogenized  and  unnitrogenized. 
The  former,  being  digested  in  the  stomach,  is  acted  on  by  pepsine ; 
the  latter,  digested  in  the  intestine,  escapes  its  action  almost  alto- 
gether. The  only  action  pespine,  as  it  appears  in  the  gastric  juice, 
seems  to  have  on  fat  is  to  dissolve  the  albuminous  cell-wall,  so  leaving 
the  fat  free  to  be  acted  upon  by  the  pancreatic  secretion.  This  sug- 
gests a  probable  cause  of  indigestion  ;  for  if  the  gastric  fluid  be  defi- 
cient in  quantity  or  quality,  the  albuminous  cell-walls  of  the  fat  may 
not  be  dissolved,  the  fat  is  not  acted  on  sufficiently  by  the  pancreatic 
secretion,  and  not  being  emulsified,  cannot  be  taken  up  by  the  lac- 
teals.  On  the  other  hand,  diseases  of  the  pancreas  or  intestine,  by 
checking  the  absorption  of  fat,  may  cause  indigestion  incurable  by 
pepsine.  This  indigestion  should  be  treated  by  pancreatine,  the  chief 
action  of  the  pancreatic  secretion  being  the  emulsion  of  fats. 
There  being  two  classes  of  food  to  be  digested,  each  in  a  different 
portion  of  the  digestive  tract,  it  is  evident  that  the  more  perfectly  one 
is  digested  the  more  easily  will  the  other  be.  If  the  stomachic  diges- 
tion be  weak,  the  fat  granules  are  not  set  free  nor  the  fibrine  dissolved 
as  they  should  be ;  the  consequence  being  that  the  pancreatic  secre- 
tion cannot  do  its  work  properly.    If  the  intestinal  digestion  be  weak, 
*  Abstract  of  a  paper  by  Richard  John  Kinkead,  B.  A.  and  M.  T.  C.  D.,  in 
the  Lancet,  No.  xx.  vol.  ii.  1870. 
