Quantitative laws in biological chemistry / by Svante Arrhenius.

  • Arrhenius, Svante, 1859-1927.
Date:
1915
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Quantitative laws in biological chemistry / by Svante Arrhenius. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    29/184 (page 13)
    albumoses and peptones, and even coagulates the casein of milk, and a lipase, i.e. an enzyme decom- posing fats—in this special case the fats of the milk are chiefly attacked—into glycerol and fatty acids. On its way through the intestine the food subse- quently comes into contact with the pancreatic juice, containing new enzymes, the trypsin, which decom- poses the albuminous substances still further— namely, to amino-acids—than the pepsin, and further a lipase, decomposing all kinds of fats, and another enzyme, maltase, which decomposes one molecule of maltose into two molecules of ^-glucose, whereby one molecule of water is also taken up. The enteric juice, with which the food later on is mixed, contains the enzymes invertase, lactase, and maltase, which break down the molecules of cane-sugar, milk-sugar, and maltose into hexoses of simpler composition, and a very active proteolytic ferment, erepsin, which decomposes peptones into amino-acids. When the food-stuffs have been decomposed into their simple compounds—amino-acids for the proteids, glycerol and fatty acids for the fats, and hexoses for the starches and sugars—they are taken up by the animal body and, by means of new ferments, partly built up to living substances contained in the different tissues, partly burnt down or otherwise de- composed to give the heat necessary to sustain the temperature of the body or to supply it with energy for doing work. Cellulose, which enters into the food of a great number of animals, is partially rendered useful to these by the aid of micro-organisms