10 THE WORK OF THE DIGESTIVE GLANDS. 



empty stomach, previously washed out with water, an active secretion of 

 gastric juice, however, soon commences which continues as long as the 

 animal eats, and even fora short time longer. One can easily obtain in 

 this way hundreds of cubic centimetres of gastric juice. I leave the 

 matter open till the next lecture why the gastric juice flows under such 

 conditions, and what importance for the whole question of digestion is 

 to be attributed to the phenomenon, merely remarking for the present 

 that this method has definitely settled the problem of obtaining 

 pure gastric juice. You can collect on any day or every day from a 

 dog thus operated upon a couple of hundred cubic centimetres of 

 juice, without any apparent injury to its health ; that is to say, you 

 can procure gastric juice from a dog almost as one obtains milk from 

 a cow. 



For pepsin experiments we need no longer prepare an infusion 

 of mucous membrane, since enormous quantities of the purest pepsin can 

 now be obtained with much greater ease and rapidity from the living 

 animal. The dog is converted into an inexhaustible manufactory of 

 the finest product. This fact, as it appears to me, must also claim the 

 attention of the pharmaceutist, since it is often considered desirable by 

 the physician, indeed in many cases essential, to prescribe pepsin and 

 hydrochloric acid to patients. Exact comparative experiments made 

 by Dr. Konowalow, with solutions of commercial pepsin, and with natural 

 gastric juice as obtained from our dogs, showed that the former was 

 incomparably inferior. The possible objection that the gastric juice 

 is procured from a dog can hardly count as a serious obstacle to its 

 employment and distribution as a pharmaceutical preparation. Many 

 experiments in the laboratory upon ourselves bear testimony to its easy 

 toleration and to the absence of any ill effects. The taste of the juice 

 is by no means unpleasant ; it is, indeed, in no way different from that of 

 a solution of hydrochloric acid of corresponding strength. To do away 

 with the prejudice one might even procure gastric juice from animals 

 whose flesh is eaten by mankind, and I cannot but express my regret 

 that this substance, which, at all events deserves a trial, has not been 

 more used in Russia, although I have frequently drawn the attention of 

 my medical colleagues to it. The wish to try my fortune once more in this 

 matter is the cause of this deviation from the description of our 

 procedures. Last year pure gastric juice, collected by Dr. Fremont 

 from the stomach of the dog by means of a fistula made on the principle 

 of Thiry's intestinal one, has been recommended in foreign lands as a 

 therapeutic agent in various affections of the digestive canal. Is it to 

 be the same in our case, that a product long known tons would have 

 met with greater success had it appeared under a foreign flag ? 



I now come back to our methods. The problem of how to obtain 



