APPETITE JUICE. 



"psychic" or "appetite-juice"'* in the course of normal gastric 

 digestion? Is any definite role to be attributed to it? What course 

 does gastric digestion take when it is absent? Fortunately to all these 

 important questions satisfactory answers are forthcoming by experi- 

 ment. We have only to regret that these answers come so late. 



Let us recall to memory how the secretion of gastric juice proceeded 

 after feeding with flesh or bread in the case of our dog with the isolated 

 miniature stomach. The following are the quantities and digestive 

 capabilities of the first two hourly portions of juice after the adminis- 

 tration of 200 grms. of flesh or bread (experiments by Dr. Chigin) : 



You see at once that the secretion of the first hour is identical in 

 the two cases both as regards quantity and digestive power, and only 

 in the second, is the secretory work differentiated according to the 

 nature of the food. How are we to explain the secretion which takes 

 place at the commencement ? Is it not the same which we have already 

 seen in the sham feeding experiments ? Is not this first onrush of the 

 stream of secretion the preliminary psychic juice ? Unquestionably, 

 gentlemen, this is the case, and we may convince ourselves of the fact 

 in the most diverse ways. Above all, the following is clear : whatever 

 occurs in the so-called sham feeding, cannot wholly be absent in the case 

 of normal feeding, since the former is nothing else than the isolated 

 commencement of normal digestion. This justifiable inference is fully 

 confirmed, if the secretion of the first hours after the administration of 

 flesh and bread be compared with that after simple sham feeding. In 

 the case of feeding with flesh and bread, the identically similar and high 

 digestive power of the first hourly portions is striking, and this power 

 coincides with what we have met in sham feeding. Further, if the 

 quantity of juice from the miniature stomach during the first hour, be 

 compared with that produced by the non-resected part of the organ to 

 do which we must multiply it by ten, since the resected cul-de-sac is 

 approximately one-tenth of the whole organ it is here again found 

 that the quantity approximately corresponds to the mean values 

 obtained by sham feeding. Finally, the depression in digestive power 



* One may be permitted to use this expression for tin- saki- of brevity. 



