Page:Defensive Ferments of the Animal Organism (3rd edition).djvu/107

 out of harmony with the species, we find in the plasma an exceedingly high capacity for splitting fats.

In the case of fats we meet with some difficulties when we try to introduce, into the circulation, fats that have not been modified so as to be in harmony with the plasma. If they are injected subcutaneously they remain at the point of injection for a long while, and are probably only transported further after the actual splitting has begun. In cases of intravenous injection one runs the risk of killing the animal, owing to fatty embolisms. The introduction, into the blood, of a fat that is out of harmony with the species could only be effected for the first time after an old experiment of J. Munk had been made use of, namely, to gorge an animal with an excessive quantity of fat, so that it may easily be demonstrated in the tissues and, naturally, also in the blood. We fed in this way on large quantities of rapeseed oil and mutton suet, and then found in the plasma a very strongly marked capacity for splitting fats. We may mention here, also, that the same effects may be produced, with proteins and peptones, and also with carbohydrates, as in the case of parenteral injection, if an excess of these substances is forced through the intestines bv flooding the intestinal canal with the particular nutriment. We would also emphasize the fact that a state of anaphylaxy may be successfully set up by this means. If we