On intestinal absorption, especially on the absorption of serum, peptone, and glucose / by E. Waymouth Reid.

  • Reid, E. Waymouth (Edward Waymouth), 1862-1948.
Date:
1900
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: On intestinal absorption, especially on the absorption of serum, peptone, and glucose / by E. Waymouth Reid. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

    12/90 page 220
    corpuscle method of estimation) is absolutely at a standstill. It is, in fact, main- tained that the normal absorption of a ’9 per cent, solution of salt by the intestine is a simple matter of filtration. It is unfortunate that Hamburger overlooked the fact that at equality of hydro- static pressure on the two sides of an animal membrane permeable to sodic chloride (as is the gut membrane from the lumen side) the water of a -9 per cent, solution of salt does move towards serum, and it is little surprising that he did not note this effect in a loop of gut drawn over a cage of aluminium wire, in which case the circulation is liable to be seriously reduced, and that he got evidence of absorption when, by slight internal pressure, the mucosa was lifted off the cage and the con- ditions for good circulation restored. Further, the results are in no way convincing, qua a demonstration of filtration, in that the relation of the quantity of fluid absorbed to the pressure employed, is far more out of proportion than is seen in the case of actual filtration experiments through animal membranes, especially in those of Tigerstedt and Santesson with “ gold beater’s skin.” In only a single case is the pressure used (230 millims. of *9 per cent, solution of salt = 17‘02 millims. Hg) in excess of the pressure in the veins in the mesentery of a fair sized dog, and certainly in all cases well below the capillary blood pressure in the villi. The author further contradicts himself at the end of the paper, where, with the loop of gut in the belly and supplied with its aluminium cage to prevent any rise of internal pressure from peristalsis and respiration, some 40 per cent, to 50 per cent, of the '9 per cent, solution of salt is stated to have been absorbed in half-an-hour. We are told that by “imbibition” and pressure (the result of respiratory move- ments, peristalsis and gravity) the gut fluid reaches the capillaries of the villi, and that then the “ mitschleppen.de Wirkung ” of the blood (say of sp. gr. 1060 and velocity 1 millim. per second) carries the fluid away. This “mitschleppende Wirkung” must indeed he small when, according to the author, at zero pressure in the gut, and with “ imbibition ” still in action, absolutely no absorption occurs. In two experiments Hamburger also shows that there is a slight disappearance of serum introduced into the gut of a dead dog (25 hours and 4 hours post mortem). The difference between the rate of disappearance in the dead dog and the rate of absorption of serum in Heidenhain’s experiments is of course great. Thus per centi- metre of gut per hour Heidenhain saw absorptions of from ’25 cub. centim., to 172 cub. centims., while in Hamburger’s two experiments the rate is ‘048 cub. centim. to '125 cub. centim., the smaller number being in the dog which had been dead the longer. The loop from which the greater disappearance of serum was noted was distended since 36 cub, centims, serum were placed in a loop less than 29 centims. in length,
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