The absorption of alcohol in the stomach and small intestine and the effect of CO2 thereon

Abstract

Although there have been extensive researches, notably by Pavlov, Edkins, end numerous American and Edinburgh workers, on the secretory functions of the stomach, it has remained somewhat doubtful from their work whether a neutral liquid such as Ringer's solution would cause secretion of gastric juice in an animal in which the vagi had been destroyed by oesophageal ligature. Edkins performed his "acute experiments" on anaesthetised animals and found that neither water nor saline were absorbed or caused any appreciable secretion of acid. This might also be true of the normal animal, but it is scarcely permissible to deduce this fact from the experiments of Edkins when anaesthetics are known to alter secretory activity in a very marked degree. For all the experiments performed in the course of the investigations which are to be described, decerebrate or pithed animals were used. In this way it was anticipated that a more normal condition of the secretory activity of the mucous membrane would be attained. This study of secretory activity was however not the initial object of the experiments. Originally it was intended to investigate the limits of the absorption of certain solutions through the gastric mucous membrane. In acute experiments reliance had hitherto been placed on anaesthetised animals. It is permissible to regard the stomach as predominantly a secretory structure. Its function as regards absorption being secondary. It is known however that alcohol, and certain other drugs, may be absorbed by the stomach. A good deal of work has been done on the absorption of alcohol into the blood from the alimentary canal in the normal animal under varying conditions, but the degree of absorption that took place in the stomach could not be determined in this way. In many of the recorded experiments very high concentrations of alcohol have been used and such as man would never have to deal with in ordinary life. These high concentrations of alcohol In the stomach were avoided In the present experiments as likely to promote too abnormal a state. It is an ordinary experience that alcoholic beverages taken with aerated waters produce their characteristic effects much more rapidly than when taken in ordinary water. The scientific basis of this feet was investigated by experiments on the fact produced on the absorption of alcohol by the presence of CO2. Later some of these investigations were extended to the intestinal mucous membrane. The work to be described falls into two main divisions. In Part I. the points studied were (a) the degree of absorption of physiologically inactive liquids, and (b) the secretion of hydrochloric acid as indicating the secretory activity which these liquids caused. In Part II: the absorption of alcohol and the effect of CO2 on the amount of absorption was considered.