Then comes a still more profuse fluid, dissolving all the
meaty part. Then the fat is attended to by the stream of pancreatic juice,
and at the same time the bile pours upon it, doing its own work in its own
mysterious way; and last of all, lest any process should have been
imperfect, the long canal sends out a juice having some of the properties
of all.
Thus each day's requirements call for
PINTS.
Of saliva 3-3/4
gastric juice 12
bile 3-3/4
pancreatic juice 1-1/2
intestinal juice 1/2
-------
21-1/2
Do not fancy this is all wasted or lost. Very far from it: for the whole
process seems to be a second circulation, as it were; and, while the blood
is moving in its wonderful passage through veins and arteries, another
circulation as wonderful, an endless current going its unceasing round so
long as life lasts, is also taking place. But without food the first would
become impossible; and the quality of food, and its proper digestion, mean
good or bad blood as the case may be. We must follow our mouthful of food,
and see how this action takes place.
When the different juices have all done their work, the _chyme_, which is
food as it passes from the stomach into the duodenum or passage to the
lower stomach or bowels, becomes a milky substance called _chyle_, which
moves slowly, pushed by numberless muscles along the bowel, which squeeze
much of it into little glands at the back of the bowels.
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