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PUTREFACTION IN THE INTESTINE. 519
indeed die with symptoms of starvation. In these cases the excrement
has the odor of carrion, and this was considered a proof of the action
of the bile in checking putrefaction. The emaciation and the increased
want of food depend, naturally, upon the imperfect absorption of the
fats, whose high calorific value is reduced and must be replaced by the
taking up of larger quantities of other nutritive bodies. If the quan-
tity of proteins and fats be increased, then the latter, which can be only
incompletely absorbed, accumulate in the intestine. This accumulation
of the fats in the intestine only renders the action of the digestive juices
on proteins more difficult, and thus increases the amount of putrefac-
tion. This explains th’e appearance of fetid feces, whose pale color is
not due to a lack of bile-pigments, but to a surplus of fat (Rohmann,
Voit). If the animal is, on the contrary, fed on meat and carbohy-
drates, it may remain quite normal, and the leading off of the bile does
not cause any increased putrefaction. The carbohydrates may be
uninterruptedly absorbed in such large quantities that they replace
the fat of the food, and this is the reason why the animal on such a diet
dots not become emaciated. As with this diet the putrefaction in the
intestine is no greater than under normal conditions even though the bile
is absent, it would seem that the bile in the intestine exercises no pre-
ventive action on putrefaction.
To this conclusion the objection may be made that the carbohy-
drates, which are capable of checking putrefaction, can, so to speak,
undertake the anti-putrid action of the bile. But as there are also cases
(in dogs with biliary fistula) where the intestinal putrefaction is not
increased with exclusive meat diet, 1
it is maintained that the absence
of bile in the intestine, even by exclusive carbohydrate food, does not
always cause an increased putrefaction.
Although the question as to the manner in which the putrefactive
processes in the intestine under physiological conditions are kept within
certain limits cannot le answered positively, still it may be asserted
that the faint acid reaction, and the absorption of water, and the rela-
tively rapid movement, of the contents of the small intestine and their
absorption, are important factors.
That the acid reaction in the intestine has a preventive influence on
the putrefactive processes follows from the existing relation between
the degree of acidity of the gastric juice and the putrefaction in the
intestine. Since the investigations and observations of Kast, Stadel-
mann, Wasbutzki, Biernacki and Mester had proved that an
increased putrefaction in the intestine occurred when the quantity of
hydrochloric acid in the gastric juice was diminished or deficient,
1
See Hirschler and Terray, 1. c.
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