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Pepsin   Listen
noun
Pepsin  n.  (Physiol. Chem.) A proteolytic enzyme (MW 34,500) contained in the secretory glands of the stomach. In the gastric juice it is united with dilute hydrochloric acid (0.2 per cent, approximately) and the two together constitute the active portion of the digestive fluid. It degrades proteins to proteoses and peptides, and is notable for having a very low pH optimum for its activity. It is the active agent in the gastric juice of all animals. Note: As prepared from the glandular layer of pigs' or calves' stomachs it constitutes an important article of pharmacy.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Pepsin" Quotes from Famous Books



... Greek or early Egyptian figure. Queen of the night behind, and of the gods around, and of the city below—here, if at all, you think, may one find the answer to the riddle. Her ostensible message, burning in the firmament beside her, is that we should buy pepsin chewing-gum. But there is more, not to be given in words, ineffable. Suddenly, when she has surveyed mankind, she closes her left eye. Three times she winks, and then vanishes. No ordinary winks these, but portentous, terrifyingly steady, obliterating a great tract of the sky. Hour by hour ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke

... tonics, alkalies, acids, pepsin, saline and vegetable laxatives, are variously prescribed. Special mention may be made ...
— Essentials of Diseases of the Skin • Henry Weightman Stelwagon

... about the consistency of thick pea soup. The food then enters the smaller intestine, at the beginning of which the juices from the pancreas are added. The pancreas is a gland which furnishes a strongly alkaline liquid neutralizing the acid of the gastric juice, so that the gastric agent, pepsin, loses its power. From this gland comes a material which can act on all kinds of food and which is by far the most important ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden

... juice of the higher animals, is, beyond a doubt, emitted through the mouth. The piston of the hooks, continually in movement, never ceases spitting it out in infinitesimal doses. Each spot touched receives a grain of some subtle pepsin, which soon suffices to make that spot run in every direction. As digesting, when all is said, merely means liquefying, it is no paradox to assert that the maggot digests its food before ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre

... melon than that of any other fruit, and the seeds, which are found clustered in the centre of the fruit, have a flavour that closely resembles that of seeds of the nasturtium. Both the seeds and the fruit contain an active principle called papain, which is really a vegetable pepsin, that has the effect of greatly assisting in the assimilation of all food with which it is eaten, hence it is a valuable remedy in the case of dyspepsia, and persons who take the fruit regularly are never subject to this exceedingly troublesome disease. The fruit can be used both ...
— Fruits of Queensland • Albert Benson



Words linked to "Pepsin" :   gastric acid, enzyme, gastric juice



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