MECHANISM OF GASTRIC SECRETION SUMMARY. Ill 



tion of the psychic stimulus, the secretory fibres are now only weakly 

 excited through the end apparatus; the trophic, on the other hand, 

 are strongly influenced. In cases where fat has been added to the 

 food, reflex inhibitory impulses proceed to the centres which affect 

 the activity both of the secretory and of the trophic nerves. 



I have depicted the work of the gastric glands as we have seen it in 

 our experiments, and as it has developed under our hands. Is the 

 picture a new one ? In its details, yes, but not in its fundamental 

 features. However singular it may appear, the sketch of this picture 

 was more than fifty years ago outlined by physiology. May this consti- 

 tute another reason for our science relinquishing its characteristic 

 shyness of new things and for its conversion to our interpretation 

 of the phenomena under consideration ! 



The talented author of the Traits Analytique dela Digestion Blond- 

 lot spoke in plain words of the importance of the act of taking food, 

 and of the specific excitability of the gastric mucous membrane. The 

 facts adduced in the working up of his theory were naturally insufficient, 

 but we must not forget that the first experiments on dogs with artificial 

 gastric fistulse had only just been, performed. It is truly incompre- 

 hensible, that the researches of Blondlot and his views upon the secretion 

 of gastric juice, have experienced during the last fifty years no comple- 

 tion, no additions, but, on the contrary, have passed out of sight, 

 thanks to the faulty experiments and erroneous representations of 

 later authors. Only in the works of a few writers and these mostly 

 French has Blondlot's theory survived. Of other investigators, we 

 must give mention to Heidenhain, who has enriched the physiology of 

 absorption in general, but more especially in connection with the secretory 

 work of the stomach, has discovered important facts and given birth to 

 many fruitful ideas. From him proceed the subdivision of the secretory 

 process according to periods and exciting agencies, as well as the sugges- 

 tion that it would be important to investigate the individual food-stuffs 

 in relation to the work of the stomach. Heidenhain's results are con- 

 tained in his well-known article on the secretion of the cardiac glands 

 of the stomach, published in the year 1879 in Pfliiger's Arc/tires. The 

 work of Blondlot and the additions of Heidenhain comprise almost 

 everything of importance which was accomplished by physiology in 

 fifty years concerning the conditions and mechanism of the secretory 

 work of the stomach during digestion. Full of moment, however, for 

 our subject was the obvious error that mechanical stimulation constituted 

 an effective excitant of the gastric glands, and this error was in its turn 

 a result of faulty methods. 



