INDIGESTION AND NERVOUS DEPRESSION. 233 



moved from the action of the gas. This gas is rarely generated in the 

 intestine in such a quantity as to give rise to symptoms of acute 

 poisoning, but it has sometimes this effect. A case is recorded by 

 Senator * in which a strong and previously healthy man became af- 

 fected with a slight gastro-intestinal catarrh in consequence of some 

 error in his diet, and on the second day afterward he had frequent 

 eructations, smelling strongly of sulphuretted hydrogen. At the same 

 time he suddenly became collapsed, pale, giddy, and with a rapid, small, 

 compressible pulse. This lasted for one and a half to two minutes, 

 and then passed off. The urine which he passed shortly afterward 

 contained sulphuretted hydrogen. On the same day he had a second 

 attack of a similar sort, and then, the bowels having been opened, he 

 recovered completely. Nor is sulphuretted hydrogen the only gas 

 which may be formed in the stom&ch. Marsh-gas is sometimes formed 

 there too, and, in an exceedingly interesting case recorded by Dr. 

 Ewald,f the quantity was so great that it first attracted the patient's at- 

 tention by taking fire as it issued from his mouth while he was lighting 

 a cigar. In this curious case the formation of gas alternated with the 

 production of a great quantity of acid fluid in the stomach, which led 

 to vomiting, or, as the patient himself expressed it, sometimes his gas- 

 factory and sometimes his vinegar-factory was at work. It is possible 

 that this gas may be formed in small quantities in many more cases 

 than has hitherto been suspected, but its absorption does not seem to 

 have anything like the same deleterious action as that of sulphuretted 

 hydrogen. Nor was the acetic acid which was found by chemical 

 analysis to exist in the acid secretion of the stomach in this case likely 

 to be productive of any injurious effects after its absorption. But 

 butyric acid, which is sometimes formed in the stomach in other cases 

 of indigestion, has been shown by O. Weber to be a powerful poison 

 acting chiefly on the nerve-centers. 



It seems probable, however, that the substances, both gaseous and 

 solid, formed in the stomach and absorbed from it, are upon the whole 

 less poisonous in cases of indigestion than those Avhich are produced 

 lower down in the intestinal canal. We often find that patients are 

 affected with severe gastric disorder without any affection of the nei-ve- 

 centers beyond the weakness produced by the inability to digest food, 

 while in many persons the mere omission to evacuate the contents of 

 the bowels at the usual time will lead to a headache in the course of 

 the day. No doubt such a headache as this may be due, to some ex- 

 tent, to the nervous irritation caused by the presence of the faeces in 

 the intestine, but it seems quite possible that it is also due to the ab- 

 sorption of some of the faecal matter itself. Nor do we at present 

 know what effects are produced by the absorption of the various diges- 

 tive juices themselves. That such absorption takes place there can be 



* " Berliner klin. Wochonschr.," 1868, No. 24. 



f " Reicherts und Du Bois-Reymond's Archiv.," 18Y4, p. 217. 



