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ABSORPTION OF FATS. 537
of soaps. According to Croner the absorption of soaps occurs only
in the lower parts of the small intestine.
The importance of the bile, the soaps, and the alkali carbonates has
been closely studied, principally in the very thorough investigations of
Pfluger. He has quantitatively determined the solvent power of
the above-mentioned bodies—each alone as well as different mixtures
of these—for the various fatty acids, and has closely studied the mode
of action of the bile. From his investigations he has arrived at the
conclusion that no unsplit fat is absorbed, that all fats, before their
absorption, must first be split into glycerin and fatty acids, and that the
bile, on account of its solvent power for soaps and fatty acids, is sufficient
for the absorption of large quantities of fat eaten. The object of the
formation of an emulsion is, according to this view, that the fat in this
condition forms such a large surface for the action of the steapsin or
the fat-splitting agents. The possibility that all the fat must be first
split and that no unsplit fat is absorbed is, according to these researches,
not to be denied.
The next question is whether all the fat or the greater part of it
passes into the .blood through the lymphatics and the thoracic duct.
According to the researches of Walther and Frank x
on dogs, it seems
that only a small part of the fats, or at least of the fatty acids fed,
passes into the chylous vessels; but these observations can hardly be
applied to the absorption of neutral fats, or to the absorption in man
under normal circumstances. Munk and Rosenstein,2
in their inves-
tigations on a girl with a lymph fistula, found 60 per cent of the fat
ingested in the chyle, and of the total quantity of fat in the chyle only
4-5 per cent existed as soaps. On feeding with a foreign fatty acid,
such as erucic acid, they found 37 per cent of the introduced body as
neutral fat in the chyle. Not all the fat introduced is found in the
chyle, and there is always a not inconsiderable part of the absorbed
fat whose fate we are not able to follow.
The completeness with which fats are absorbed depends, under nor-
mal conditions, essentially upon the kind of fat. In this regard it is
known, especially from the investigations of Munk and Arnschixk,3
that the varieties of fat with high melting-points, such as mutton-tallow,
and especially stearin, are not so completely absorbed as the fats with
low melting-points, such as hog- and goose-fat, olive-oil, etc. The kind
of fat also has an influence on the rapidity of absorption, as Munk and
Rosenstein found that solid mutton-fat was absorbed more slowly
1
Walther, Arch. f. (Anat. u.) Physiol., 1S90; Frank. Qrid., 1S92.
2
Virchow’s Arch., 123.
s
Munk, Virchow’s Arch., 80 and 95; Arnschink, Zeitschr. f. Biologie. 26.
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