428 Studies in Water Drinking [April-July 



After stimulating the gastric secretion the main bulk of the water 

 very quickly enters the intestine, but it does not carry with it any 

 appreciable part of the sohds present in the stomach. 



An abstract in a recent number of the Journal of the American 

 Medical Association (Jan. 31) quotes a French worker as claiming 

 that water may leave the empty stomach very quickly but that it may 

 remain for hours if the stomach contains food. This Statement is 

 rather at variance with Cohnheim's demonstration, by means of 

 bismuth feeding and X-ray examination, that water leaves the füll 

 stomach very quickly by means of a trough along the lesser 

 curvature. 



My associates and myself have made a large number of experi- 

 ments upon the influence of water drinking with meals. Men and 

 lower animals have been used as subjects. When we initiated our 

 experiments upon man we were unable at first to get suitable sub- 

 jects. The deep seated prejudice against the drinking of water at 

 mealtime, and the mental vision of the direful results to follow 

 acted as a barrier against which our inducements were of no avail. 

 At length, however, a member of the staff of our department an- 

 nounced that he was ready to "take a chance" as he expressed it. 

 From the psychical Standpoint, therefore, everything was against 

 the water. I shall summarize briefly what the water was able to do, 

 in spite of the psychical handicap, in this first experiment and in 

 others of a similar character which followed. 



First, just a word as to the character of the diet employed and 

 the experimental plan followed. In all cases both diet and experi- 

 mental plan were very simple. The diet consisted of graham Crack- 

 ers, butter, milk, peanut butter and water. Uniform quantities of 

 these dietary constituents were ingested by the subject of the experi- 

 ment for a period of about one week, this interval constituting what 

 we termed our prelitninary or normal period. The excreta for each 

 day were collected and analyzed and the data thus secured consti- 

 tuted our normal basis for comparison. Next came our true ex- 

 perimental period or zvater period as we called it. During this 

 period the diet was the same as during the preliminary period except 

 that the subject was required to drink at each meal a volume of water 

 ranging from ^00 cc. to 1300 cc. in excess of that previously taken. 



