On intestinal absorption, especially on the absorption of serum, peptone, and glucose / by E. Waymouth Reid.

  • Reid, E. Waymouth (Edward Waymouth), 1862-1948.
Date:
1900
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: On intestinal absorption, especially on the absorption of serum, peptone, and glucose / by E. Waymouth Reid. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

    7/90 (page 215)
    water absorbed at the same rate, while at 1 per cent, the salt was absorbed faster than the water. His points concerning the equality in the rate of absorption of salt and water at a certain concentration of the introduced salt solution, and the absorption of salt from solutions of lower concentration in salt than the blood plasma, were insisted upon by Heidenhain in support of the theory of cell action. Their discussion will for the moment be adjourned until a more detailed consideration of the phenomena is convenient. One other point in Gumilewski’s memoir must, however, be here considered. He maintained that the quantity of succus entericus secreted during the experimental period can be gauged by the amount of sodium carbonate present in the fluid removed from the fistulous loop of gut, because he found the concentration of this salt (and also of sodium chloride) remained very constant in the succus secreted from day to day, when no experimental absorption was proceeding. Rohmann, however, who used one of Gumilewski’s animals among others, could only find this constancy in sodium carbonate in the case of a short (11 centims.) loop which had been in communication with the air for over a year, and saw great irregu- larities in the concentration of sodium carbonate in the succus of more recently established and longer fistulous loops, v. Scanzoni has also been unable to confirm the regularity, and the recent experiments of O. Cohnheim also show very great variations in the sodium carbonate added in equal periods of time to solutions of glucose placed in the loop, and, moreover, no relation between the amount of sodium carbonate secreted and the concentration of the glucose solution filled in, provided the latter be not strong enough to injure the gut wall. As Heidenhain points out, the secreted succus is by no means the sole source of the sodium carbonate found in the loop at the end of an experiment—some may arise from the mucus of goblet cells and some may diffuse* in from the blood if the gut wall is injured. There is probably no accurate method of estimating the amount of succus entericus secreted during an absorption experiment. Both Bidder and Schmidt, and Voit and Bauer saw no accumulation in loops tied off for a few hours, and in fistulous loops, when the animal has fasted for a day, only a few grammes are formed in an hour, so that it appears reasonable to act on the supposition that bland, non-irritating fluids do not evoke any special activity of Lieberkuhn’s glands, and that the quantity of fluid secreted is so small in relation to the large volumes of introduced solution absorbed as to be negligible. Edkins, using '6 per cent, solutions of sodium chloride, could not convince himself of any considerable secretion of succus entericus in the * Though not strictly accurate, seeing that a membrane intervenes, the term diffusion is used in this paper to mean the passage of a substance in solution through a membrane, from a seat of higher to a seat of lower partial osmotic pressure of the substance, under the conditions of physical permeability of the membrane to the substance in question.