An article with this title appears in the New York Medical Journal of Nov. 9, from the pen of Dr. W. S. Christopher, of Cincinnati. The term is used to designate the pathological fermentation of the products of normal intestinal digestion. The author's deductions are based upon well established chemical laws, and, if true, go far toward the explanation of a train of phenomena concerning which our knowledge has been very incomplete.
Christopher's aim is to elucidate the pathology of the intestinal fermentations. He objects to the prevalent idea that fermentation is opposed to digestion; or, in other words, that a food may be either digested or undergo fermentation, but cannot be both digested and fermented. On the contrary be believes that the action of the digestive ferments is usually, if not always, a prerequisite to the action of the microörganisms of pathological fermentation. The process is thus brought into