Abstract
It has been shown previously 1 , 2 that, in the collection of gastric juice from dogs with fundus pouches of the Pavlov type, the combined acidity becomes negligibly small if the secretion be collected in such a way as to minimize its content of mucus or serous transudate. With this elimination of combined acid, the free acidity, as determined in 4 dogs, gave an average value of 0.157 N ±0.003 N. During the past summer, several more such fundus-pouch animals were prepared, one of them a pregnant dog of 10 kilos body weight. Five weeks after the operation, this animal dropped a litter of 4 healthy pups which she suckled as long as she was permitted to.
For the 2 weeks immediately preceding parturition, the total volume of juice collected from her pouch never exceeded 15 cc. per day—this amount being secreted wholly within 6 to 8 hours after feeding. Beginning with the day of parturition, however, the flow increased very markedly in amount and duration. In fact, except during certain periods of experimentation, the secretion was practically continuous throughout the 24 hours between single daily feedings. For the first 3 weeks of lactation, the average daily volume of juice collected was 150 cc. A number of times the pouch was so full that the pressure forced evacuation with consequent loss of contents. The increase in daily output, therefore, was well over tenfold. During the sixth week, however, the second week after the pups had been completely weaned, the average daily output had fallen to about 30 cc. and was decreasing further at the time of the accidental death of the dog during the seventh week.
Titration of 66 samples of this hypersecretion juice gave an average value of 0.157 N ±0.007 N for total acidity—titrating with phenol red to pH 7.1.
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