The digestion and assimilation of fat in the human body : an epitome of laboratory notes on physiological and chemical experiments bearing on this subject / by H. Critchett Bartlett.

  • Bartlett, H. Critchett (Henry Critchett)
Date:
1877
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The digestion and assimilation of fat in the human body : an epitome of laboratory notes on physiological and chemical experiments bearing on this subject / by H. Critchett Bartlett. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    equal to that of the body, when the pancreatic sugar¬ forming principle is not accompanied by antiseptics similar to those furnished by the gastric fluids and the bile, causes too rapid a change from alkalinity to strong acidity to convert the whole of the starch, before it develops large quantities of lactic acid, and putrefactive disorganization sets in. My experiments included the use of many antiseptics to simulate in the laboratory the processes of nature in the living body. The result of employing the stronger antiseptics, in quantities sufficient to prevent putrefaction, was, I found, equally fatal to the active principles. Those of a lesser astringency, with certain exceptions, proved themselves less competent to delay putrescence than to arrest the functional power of the pancreatic principle. No foreign antiseptic enabled me to dispense with the natural preservatives of the bile and gastric fluids; but with these, or rather with a portion of these, as I shall hereafter explain, I obtained the transforma¬ tions by the proper principles of the pancreatic juice at temperatures approaching that of the living body, and without putrefactive evidence. The peculiar principle of pancreatin, exercising diges- tional power over nitrogenous substances, comports with the functions previously noticed by Corvisart, except that this principle, when separately used, instead of taking the concrete fluid for the purpose, is infinitely more energetic in a state of acidity. Two special digestive actions of pancreatic juice having been separately watched in their somewhat opposite capacities, and the reactions most suitable to each individual principle ascertained, a third, by far the most essential of all the specific functions of the fluid secreted