Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
August,  1901. 
Story  of  the  Papaw. 
389 
products,  the  ferment  is  left  behind  to  act  upon  a  fresh  portion  of 
the  fibre,  in  turn  giving  rise  to  soluble  products  or  peptones. 
This  experiment  was  made  in  order  to  imita'e  certain  known 
conditions  present  in  the  process  of  digestion,  where  there  is  a  con- 
stant stream  of  fluid  in  the  intestinal  tract.  Taken  with  other 
experiments  this  result  seems  to  show  that  ferments  of  the  papaw 
act  very  energetically  in  a  small  amount  of  fluid,  and  will  also  act  in 
a  stream  of  water. 
Wild  Papaw. 
The  influence  of  reaction  upon  the  ferments  of  the  papaw  form  an 
interesting  comparion  with  those  of  the  animal  ferments. 
The  power  of  pepsin  is  destroyed  in  alkaline  solution,  such  as 
lime  water,  sodium  bicarbonate,  ammonia,  etc.;  on  the  other  hand 
the  activity  of  pancreatin,  ptyalin  or  diastase  is  inhibited  in  acid 
solution.  The  papaw  enzyme  is  active  in  acid,  neutral  or  alkaline 
solution;  but  pepsin  and  pancreatin  cannot  be  mixed  together  in 
solution  either  acid,  alkaline  or  neutral,  and  still  preserve  their 
