Origin. - A mixture of the enzymes naturally existing in the pancreas of warmblooded animals, usually obtained from the fresh pancreas of the hog or the ox, and consisting principally of amylopsin, myopsin, trypsin, and steapsin, and capable of converting not less than 25 times its own weight of starch into substances soluble in water.

Description and Properties. - A yellowish, yellowish-white, or grayish amorphous powder, odorless, or having a faint, peculiar, not unpleasant odor, and a somewhat meat-like taste. Slowly and almost completely soluble in water, insoluble in alcohol.

Pancreatin digests albuminoids and all proteid substances, converts starch into sugar, and, when not over twenty-four hours old, aids in the digestion of fats. Prolonged contact with mineral acids renders it inert.

Dose. - 10-20 grains (0.6-1.2 Gm.) [7 1/2 grains (0.5 Gm.), U. S. P.].

Antagonists and Incompatibles. - Strong mineral acids.

Synergists. - Weak alkalies.

Physiological Action. - The four ferments which it contains render it capable, in either weak alkaline or acid media, of digesting proteid foods, emulsifying fats and oils, and resolving them into fatty acids and glycerin, converting starch into sugar, and curdling milk.

Therapeutics. - Like pepsin, it is used as an artificial agent in certain disorders of digestion.

Administration. - It may be given dry, in powder, capsules, or compressed pills, or in solution. It should be administered in combination with an alkali, as the activity of pancreatin is destroyed by acids, and should be given ordinarily from two to four hours after meals, when the chyme has entered the intestine. It may also be administered immediately after eating or with the food, since there is an interval of from fifteen minutes to half an hour after the ingestion of food before the stomach-contents are rendered sufficiently acid by the gastric juice to interfere with the activity of the pancreatin.

For rectal nourishment pancreatin is preferable to pepsin, because of its superior action in predigesting food.

Pankreon is a recently introduced dried mixture of the pancreatic emzymes.