Studies on the Secretion of Gastric Juice

In a previous article (1)) on the secretion of gastric juice in fever, it was reported that the concentration of’ chlorides in gastric juice was constant or slightly reduced. In this present paper I wish to emphasize the relation between the secretion of total chlorides in gastric juice and the secretion of free hydrochloric acid. Most of the data for this paper were obtained at that time but until now have remained unpublished. The gastric juice was obtained, as previously, from the stomach of dogs with a Pavlov pouch. The animals were kept on a standard diet. Their temperature varied as the result of the production of fever by intravenous injection of solutions of sodium nucleinate or Bacillus prodigiosis. ’ The free hydrochloric acid was determined by titrating 1 cc. of the gastric juice with ~/40 NaOH, dimethylaminoazobenzene being used as indicator. The total chlorides were determined by the method of McLean and Van Slyke (2). The results given were obtained from 175 chloride determinations of gastric juice on seventeen different animals. The free hydrochloric acidity varied from 0.0 to 0.48 per cent while the total chlorides varied from 0.39 to 0.54 per cent. In examining Charts 1, 2, 3, and 4, it will be noted that the curves for the secretion of free hydrochloric acid do not correspond to the curves for the secretion of total chlorides, although the percentage of total chlorides is always greater than the percentage of free acid, as should be expected. The curve for the total chlorides is almost a straight line with just slight deviations, while the curve for the free acid varies markedly. In some places, however, both curves run nearly parallel, while at other times there is practically no relation between them. 257