Abstract
While carrying on a clinical evaluation of the effects of feeding dried whole bile to patients suffering from a variety of lesions it was noted that the symptom of anorexia was often relieved. 1 Sensations of hunger occurred within a period of a few minutes to a few hours although in an occasional instance anorexia has been increased. Because of these observations we conceived the possibility that gastric contractions might be affected, or even called forth from a quiescent stomach. Accordingly, we determined to investigate the response to dried bile of the stomach of fasting dogs.
Method. Three dogs were prepared by operation with gastric fis-tulae after the method of Carlson 2 and after training and conditioning the animals, the gastric tonus and motility was measured by the balloon-manometer method. A condom balloon 8-10 cm in length was attached to the end of a No. 10 catheter and a No. 8 catheter attached alongside for gastric injection. The catheters and balloon Were inserted through the gastrostomy opening into the fundus of the dog's stomach and then 50 cc of air was injected into the balloon and the catheter connected to a bromof orm manometer. The 50 cc of air usually created a pressure of 3-6 cm.
The gastric tonus and motility were then recorded by Patterson's kymographic ink recording method. 3
The dried whole bile used in the experiments was swine gallbladder bile prepared by vacuum distillation at low temperature.∗As sodium a-glycohyodesoxycholate is the principal bile salt in swine bile, 4 it was decided to test the effect of this salt as well as whole bile.
From analysis of the results of the foregoing preliminary study it would seem that when either dried whole swine bile or sodium a-glycohyodesoxycholate dissolved in water are placed in a dog's stomach during the quiescent phase gastric hunger contractions are produced (Figs. 1, 2).
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