Much of the other matter submitted is immaterial. The following, so far as it means anything, seems to confirm the correctness of the report of the Council’s referee that Ingluvin is practically devoid of proteolytic activity: “... the therapeutic activity must be due to the bitter property, rather than any proteolytic activity, and it probably increases, thereby, the functional activity of the stomach, by which the normal digestive process is increased. Ingluvin in a 0.4 per cent. hydrochloric acid solution at 37 to 40 C. or if mixed with an aqueous solution of pepsin under the same conditions possesses an acrid, bitter taste and increases the secretion of the saliva and this is practically the same condition as when in the stomach, it no doubt stimulates the depressed mucosa peptic glands and increases gastric solution.” W. A. Puckner, Secretary. COMMENTS The fallacies attending the use of digestive ferments in most stomach diseases have been previously noted in The Journal.[53] In most digestive disorders a deficiency of the digestive ferment has not been proved. In cases in which pepsin is lacking, its administration is valueless unless it is combined with large doses of hydrochloric acid, and it is doubtful whether this combination is either necessary or conspicuously useful. There is, however, something so alluring about medication by digestive ferments which are assumed to supply a physiologic need, that since their discovery they have formed a fertile field for the activity of the manufacturer of proprietaries. As by scientific laboratory tests, it is possible to determine whether a given preparation has digestive power, the manufacturers of Ingluvin avoid this point by claiming that the remedy acts, not on the food, but on the stomach itself. That remedies may exist which act as stimulants to the digestive secretions can not be denied, although at the present time this power has not been satisfactorily demonstrated. The proprietors of Ingluvin, finding that proteolytic activity is not to be attributed to this preparation of chickens’ gizzards, announce a new therapeutic fact in the claim that “the natural glycocholic acid in Ingluvin is the active principle and the most efficient agent in the treatment of all stomachic and enteric disorders. According to the report made to the Council there is no glycocholic acid in this preparation, nor is it possible, from the anatomic arrangements of the fowl’s digestive apparatus, for it to get there. By all the tests which can be applied to determine its value this preparation is of much less value in digestive disorders than saccharated pepsin, which was discontinued in the Pharmacopeia because of its inferiority to the other forms of the ferment. [53] Feb. 2, 1907, p. 415, and Feb. 9, 1907, p. 521.