On the digestive ferments and the preparation and use of artificially digested food : being the Lumleian lectures for the year 1880, delivered before the Royal College of Physicians / by Wm. Roberts.

  • Roberts, Sir William, 1830-1899.
Date:
1880
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the digestive ferments and the preparation and use of artificially digested food : being the Lumleian lectures for the year 1880, delivered before the Royal College of Physicians / by Wm. Roberts. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    Lecture I. ; SUMMAEY.—Digestion is a Taculty oe Function Common to Animals AND Plants—Exterior Digestion—Interstitlil Digestion—General Characters and Properties op the Digestive Ferments—Preparation of Artificial Digestive Juices—Diastatic Ferments and the Diges- tion OF Starch-Theoey of the Process—The Eespective Shares of Saliva and Pancreatic Juice in the Digestion of Starch—When can Starch be said to be Fully Digested ?—Absolute Energy of Dus- TASE—Digestion of Cane-sugar—and the Inversive Ferment. jDigestion lias been usually regarded as tlie special {attribute of animals. They receive into their ali- imentary canal the food which they require for their fsustenance in a crude form. It is there subjected to S' e action of certain ferments which transmute its 3ments, by a peculiar chemical process, into new rms which are fitted for absorption. Looked at this restricted sense, plants have no digestive notion. They possess no alimentary canal nor ly vestige of a digestive apparatus. But when .e matter is examined more profoundly it is seen at plants digest as well as animals, and that the process in both kingdoms of nature is fundamentally ;bhe same. In order to understand this generalization—which pwas first propounded by Claude Bernard, and con- stitutes one of the most important fruits of his splendid labours'—it is necessary to recognize di- gestion under two types or conditions—namely, a • Claude Bernard—Ler^ons sur les phdnomdnes de la vie, T. II. Edited fcfter his death by Dastre—Paris, 1879.