This and Maltum are reintroductions into the Pharmacopoeia of articles admitted to the 1880 revision but dismissed in 1890; it is contained in the National Formulary.

Description and. Properties. - Malt extract consists of easily assimilable carbohydrates - maltose and dextrin - and small quantities of proteids; the ash contains the phosphates of calcium and magnesium. If the malt has not been overheated (by which the diastase would be destroyed), and if the extract is prepared according to the U. S. Pharmacopoeia process, the preparation, when fresh, will contain diastase, which is an efficient ferment for the conversion of starch into dextrose; the diastatic, power, however, rapidly deteriorates on keeping.

Dose. - Average dose: 4 fluidrams (16 Cc), U. S. P.

Diastase prepared from malt that has not been heated above 135 F. is capable, in neutral or very slightly acid or alkaline solutions, of digesting appreciable quantities of starch. It is doubtful, however, if this action will take place in the stomach to any appreciable extent, and still more doubtful if, in the treatment of what has been termed starchy indigestion - amylaceous dyspepsia - such malt compounds are of any service. The clinical evidence adduced to the efficiency of such compounds should be taken with caution.

One amylolytic ferment from a mould, the Aspergillus oryza (Ahlburg), which has been utilized in the breweries of Japan for centuries, particularly in the production of the Japanese rice wine (Sake), has been introduced within recent years into pharmaco-therapeutics under the name of taka-diastase. It is very active, but it is quite doubtful if it has any particular action on the undigested starch found in the intestines after it has been in the stomach for any length,of time. Excellent clinical observers report good results, and it is deserving of trial. In all questions concerning the action of foreign ferments it should be remembered that they are largely foreign proteid bodies and are probably broken up and digested as such, apart from their action as enzymes, by the natural enzymes of the digestive tract, notably by pepsin.