Further observations on the use of pancreatic emulsion and pancreatine, in consumption, marasmus, tabes mesenterica, and other wasting diseases of children and adults / by Dr. Dobell.

  • Horace Dobell
Date:
[1872?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Further observations on the use of pancreatic emulsion and pancreatine, in consumption, marasmus, tabes mesenterica, and other wasting diseases of children and adults / by Dr. Dobell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    marks, good reasons make us now believe that really it is not proper to feed infants with copious starchy matters, however these may be rendered digestible. The principal results of Dr. Sonsino's investiga- tions are summed up in the two following conclusions, which, liowever, are not new:—1. Pancreatic juice in dogs, cats, and rabbits, in the first week of life—perhaps for some days more—is devoid of any digestive action on starch. 2. In the early life of man, probably till the beginning of dentition, infants offer a true physiological dys- pepsia for starchy aliments, caused by the inactivity of one at least— possibly of all—the humours that concur in the digestion of those aliments (saliva, gastric juice, pancreatic juice, enteric juice). No doubt, when wasting occurs in these early periods of life, it is very often due to foolish attempts to nourish children upon farinaceous foods, by which dyspepsia and diarrhoea add to the exhaustion of partial assimilative-starvation. But, as a matter of fact, farinaceous food is seldom depended upon without some addition of cow's milk or some assistance from lactation ; and we see children suflPer from wast- ing who are fed entirely upon cow's milk or nursed by their mothei's, and in such cases the physiological dyspepsia for starchy food will not account for their decline. Therefore Ave must not forget, that although normal saliva only acts upon starch, normal pancreatic juice acts also upon fats; and it is probable that these two functions of the pancreas are sufficiently independent of each other that they may exist separately. This I pointed out in my paper to the Royal Society in 1868, On the Special Action of the Pancreas on Fat and Starch (Proc. Royal Soc. No. 97). It is there stated as the results of my experiments, that in addition to the influence of the pancreas upon fat, it has the power of converting starch into glucose by simple mixture. This property remains to a certain extent after the pancreas has exhausted its property of acting upon fat. The quantity of pan- creas which before mixture with fat will convert about eight parts of starch into glucose, after satui-ation with fat will still convert about two parts of starch into glucose. It is possible, therefore, that in different states of depraved health one or other of these properties of the pancreatic juice—that for the digestion of starch, or that for the digestion of fat —may be deficient. And thus the depraved nutrition due to such deficiency will not be limited to the period of life anterior to that at which, under normal conditions, the proper functions of the pancreas should be developed. It is evident that when the power of digesting fat fails to be developed at its proper time, the defect must tell with double force upon children already suffering from deficient digestion of starch. The children who become the subjects of the kind of wasting of which I am now treating are especially: (1) those who are suckled by mothers whose milk, though abundant in quantity, is extremely de- ficient in nutritive properties ; (2) those who are brought up by hand; and (3) those who, at a later period of childhood, have been subjected to similar chronic defects in diet.' Now, it is especially when the
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