Page:Defensive Ferments of the Animal Organism (3rd edition).djvu/72

 canal. These ferments may not be identical in all details. It is quite possible that the ferments passing from the glands of the intestinal canal differ more or less in nature, because, in the case of food, a much more heterogeneous mixture of separate products is introduced from the outside than is found in the already transformed nutritive material of the cells of the body, which circulates in the blood and lymph channels. It is also possible that differences prevail in the mode of disintegration, and consequently in the resulting decomposites. It is quite certain that the cells of the body are capable of hydrolytically splitting fats into alcohol and fatty acids. Further, they are able to decompose carbohydrates of a complicated structure, especially glycogen, through dextrines to maltoses. The maltose formed is reduced, by the ferment known as maltase, into two molecules of grape sugar. We know also that very dissimilar cells of the body contain ferments which decompose albumen into peptones. The latter are further reduced to still simpler products, and eventually amino-acids are left, which again may be subjected to further reductions.

It could, further, be easily shown that the cells of the body are able to decompose into their structural units the so-called polypeptides, that is, amino-acids linked in the manner of acid amides. These ferments have acquired the name of peptolytic ferments. Their