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.

    21/48 (page 21)
    the various constituents of food, and in their consequent hydration, we observe the true action of the inversive, soluble, and digestive ferments. Whether the inversive soluble ferment be taken from yeast-washing, or any of the digestive ferment principles are isolated from the other constituents of the digestive juices, all soluble ferments are produced directly from the living organism. As long as the yeast plant lives, the inversive ferment is freely given off in solution, except when the presence of special antiseptics arrests this excretion without killing the plant. Similarly, the digestive glands of the animal body may secrete fluids in which the soluble ferments are rendered inert during the period they are under the influence of counteracting agents. Boric acid at a certain strength of solution arrests the vitality of inversive ferment, and causes digestive fer¬ ments to remain dormant until they are washed free from its control. Alcohol has the same effect, varying only with the amount of its dilution. Citric, tartaric, acetic, and many other acids, usually found in a dilute form in food, exert a very injurious effect upon the digestive ferments, if they mix with the digestive fluids while too concentrated or in excessive quantities. Some volatile oils, on the other hand, exercise very little subduing influence on the solvent powers of the digestive ferments, although many of them, especially the turpenes (represented by oil of cloves, lemon peel, etc.), are highly antiseptic in the prevention of putrefactive decom¬ position. The volatile oils, which are themselves the product of fermentation, appear rather to stimulate digestion ; of this we have a good example in the volatile principle of mustard.