On being taken into the mouth, solid food comes under the mechanical action of the teeth, by which it is cut, crushed, and ground, or finely divided, at the same time it is becoming mixed with the mucus and saliva from the glands of the mouth. The action of the teeth and mucus is purely mechanical, but that of the saliva is chemical. The ptyalin of the saliva is a ferment, and in an alkaline media it changes starch into dextrin and maltose (malt sugar). The importance of thorough mastication and insalivation becomes obvious, when we consider that the digestion of starch is not continued - except possibly for a few moments after the food first enters the stomach and before it is permeated by the acid of the gastric juice - until it meets the pancreatic juice in the small intestine. The latter is secreted by the pancreas, sometimes called the abdominal salivary gland. This juice is poured into the process most freely two or three hours after a meal, or at about the time that stomach digestion ceases. For, though starch is not digested in the stomach, it remains there and passes on at the same time with other food to the small intestine.