Studies in Gastric Secretion

Most of t.he investigators who have concerned themselves with the mechanism of formation of gastric hydrochloric acid have attacked the problem by attempting to devise a physicochemical system which is capable of producing this acid in vitro and in the initial absence of any strong acid. Such a system, however, in order to be applicable in the construction of a cell model, must account quantitatively for at least the major constituents of the parietal secretion. At present we have little information concerning the nature of this fluid, for no way has yet been discovered whereby it can be obtained in the pure state. However, a previous study of this series suggested that some notion of the chemical composition of the parietal fluid might be obtained from an examination of gastric pouch juice, if the characteristics of the latter were studied as a function of the acidity of the mixed secretion. By a process of extrapolation, one might arrive at the magnitudes of these characteristics for pure parietal secretion with a high degree of probability. Although the literature contains many studies which involve two or three properties of gastric juice, only three extensive analyses have ever been reported. These are contained in the well known papers by Rosemann (1907) on gastric juice from dogs obtained by sham feeding, by Carlson (1915) on appetite juice from human beings, and by Gamble and McIver (1928) on gastric juice from cats provided with Heidenhain pouches. On examining these