Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The diseases of the stomach / by Dr. C.A. Ewald. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.
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![liave recently claimed tliat tlie secretion in tlie stomacli is con- tinuous. At all events, it was found that in 14 out of 15 persons examined for this purpose from 2 to 50 c. c. [f 3 ss. to 5 jf] of ^ fluid containing hydrochloric acid could be expressed from the stomach when free from food; the fluid was usually clear as water, mth very little potash and no remnants of food; in a few cases it was colored green or yellow. Likewise, in 10 out of 11 persons who had fasted seven hours, some of them even the greater part of the day, a fluid containing hydrochloric acid could always be ob- tained by expression, repeated at a few hours' interval. In the cases examined by Kinnicutt,* 2 c. c. of stomach contents contain- ing free hydrochloric acid was found in one case, 10 c. c. in another. Leo,t who found hydrochloric acid almost without exception in the stomachs of suckHng infants, considers it a residue of the previous process of digestion, while Rosenheim;{: and Kinnicutt agree perfectly with my results that normally the stomach contains only traces of hydrochloric acid (never over 0'04: per thousand *). I can not admit that Schreiber's experiments are convincing, and that the glands of the stomach, unlike all other secreting glands, are active without any specific stimulation, somewhat like a steam engine going dead slow, I still consider that the simple act of introducing the tube in most persons who have not become accus- tomed to it by long practice causes a reflex from the mouth down- ward, and this reflex action will sufiice to call forth a more or less marked secretion of gastric juice. Furthermore, this will occur more readily the longer the person has remained hungry beyond the usual time of eating, exactly as happens in the salivary glands of dogs, which, when a piece of meat is held before them, secrete the more abundantly the longer they have been starved. Proof of this was afforded me in five patients who were accustomed to the * Kinnicutt. Diagnosis of Diseases of the Stomach. Transactions of the Asso- ciation of American Physicians, vol. v, p. 216. f Leo, loc. cit. X T. Rosenheim. Ueber die Siiuren des gesunden und kranken Magens bei Einfiihrung von Kohlenhydraten. Virchow's Archiv, Bd. cxi, S. 419. * [004 per thousand, or 004 pro mille, as it is usually expressed in German, equals ysisw^- This is a very convenient way of expressing these high fractions in the decimal system. They can easily be converted back into fractions by remem- bering that 1 pro mille (or O'l per cent.) equals xoVo-—Ed.]](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21223026_0033.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
