PANCRE'ATINE, a proteid substance forming the active principle of tho pancreatic juice. This secretion as obtained from healthy animals is a viscid, slightly opaline fluid having an alkaline reaction and a very slight peculiar animal odor and taste. Bernard found its specific gravity in a good specimen taken from a dog to be 1.040. It contains a large amount of organic matter, and completely solidifies on dog application of heat, this property distinguishing the normal fluid from that which has undergone charge. The following is the composition of the pancreatic juice of a dog, according to Bernaro. Water 900 to 920; organic matter (pancreatine) precipitable by alcohol, and always con taining a little lime 73.6 to DO; chloride of sodium. chloride of potassium, carbonate of soda, and phosphate of lime, in all, 6.4 to 10 in 1000 parts. The chemical properties of the organic principle of the pancreatic juice are characteristic. Like albumen, it is coag ulated by heat, mineral acids, and alcohol, but its dried alcoholic precipitate will redis solve in water and retain all its physiological properties, while the precipitated albumen will not redissolve, Bernard further ascertained that pancreatine is coagulated by ail excess of sulphate of magnesia, which will also coagulate caseine, hut not albumen.
This is an important distinction, as it is necessary sometimes to be able to distinguish between a fatty emulsion made with pancreatic secretion or with albumen, each having the property of forming emulsions with fats. Pancreatic juice, although normally alka line, does not lose its peculiar digestive properties when rendered acid. as it usually is when the partly digested contents of the stomach are emptied into tire duodenum. There are, apparently. no distinctive properties given it by its inorganic accompaniments, and Bernard has shown that the organic principle, or pancreatinc alone, when extracted from the secretion and dissolved in water is capable of performing the same physiological work as the natural secretion. Sec PANCREAS, DIGESTION, ante.