IV. On intestinal absorption, especially on the absorption of serum, peptone, and glucose

Since the days of Lieberkühn it has been the laudable desire of the physiologist to maintain the thesis that the process of absorption of solutions from the intestine is explicable upon some simple physical basis. To an assertion, however, that at the present day the details of the process are within our grasp, few who have studied the literature of the subject and the thing itself, will be prepared to give unqualified assent.