Gastric Acidity in Health and Disease in India

Napier and Das Gupta (1935) found that in normal Indians in Calcutta (figure 2) the mean acidity level was distinctly higher than thatshown in the textbooks, and that that ol socalled 'normal' tea garden coolies (figure a) though not so high was nevertheless higher than the normal European standard. Apperly (1936) claimed that in Australia he had found that the gastric acidity varied according to the distance from the equator, and that it was also less in the summer than in winter. He further suggested that it was always low in anaemia. This is entirely contrary to our, and other workers', experience. Rao (1937) carried out 100 gastric analyses on normal Indian males in Southern India and