Late researches have demonstrated that the pancreatic juice exerts a
powerful effect on albuminous matters, not unlike that of the gastric
juice.

Thus, it seems that while in the mouth only starchy, and while in the
stomach only albuminous substances are digested, in the small intestine
all kinds of food materials, starchy, albuminoid, fatty and mineral, are
either completely dissolved, or minutely subdivided, and so prepared
that they may be readily absorbed through the animal membranes into the
vessels.

MILK. The milk is a white, opaque fluid, secreted in the lacteal glands
of the female, in the mammalia. These glands consist of numerous
follicles, grouped around an excretory duct, which unites with similar
ducts coming from other lobules. By successive unions, they form large
branches, termed the _lactiferous ducts_, which open by ten to fourteen
minute orifices on the extremity of the nipple. The most important
constituent of milk is _casein_; it also contains oily and saccharine
substances. This secretion, more than any other, as influenced by
nervous conditions. A mother's bosom will fill with milk at the thought
of her infant child. Milk is sometimes poisoned by a fit of ill-temper,
and the infant made sick and occasionally thrown into convulsions, which
in some instances prove fatal. Sir Astley Cooper mentions two cases in
which terror instantaneously and permanently arrested this secretion. It
is also affected by the food and drink. Malt liquors and other mild
alcoholic beverages temporarily increase the amount of the secretion,
and may, in rare instances, have a beneficial effect upon the mother.
They sometimes affect the child, however, and their use is not to be
recommended unless the mother is extremely debilitated, and there is a
deficiency of milk.