6 



EFFECTS OF INANITION IN THE PREGNANT ALBINO RAT. 119 



in underfed young rats, found an increase in the intestinal contents, while the empty 

 intestines lost in weight. Since the full stomach in my test rats weighs 3.7 per cent 

 less than that of the prenatal controls, there may be a passage of stomach contents 

 into the intestines, with a possible increase of meconium and mucus in the older rats 

 (test), which may account for the increase in the absolute weight of the full 

 intestines in the test rats. 



There may be a retardation of the growth of the intestines during prenatal 

 inanition while the stomach increases slightly in weight. However, on account of 

 the irregularities of the results obtained, it would be hazardous to venture any 

 definite conclusion. 



It has been found, however, that in postnatal inanition the gastro-intestinal 

 tract taken as a whole manifests a marked growth capacity in rats starved shortly 

 after birth. Stewart (1918a) found that the intestines gained 40 per cent in weight 

 in rats kept at a constant birth- weight for an average of 16 days. In two other 

 groups, underfed from birth to 3 weeks of age and from birth to 10 weeks of age, 

 Stewart (1918) found that the gastro-intestinal tract gained 17 and 100 per cent, 

 respectively. 



Jackson (1915«) also found that the gastro-intestinal tract gained 28 per cent 

 in rats underfed from the age of 3 to 10 weeks. However, in cases ol chronic in- 

 anition in rats underfed from the age ol 3 weeks to 1 year (Stewart, 1918) and from 

 the age of 10 weeks to 8 months (Jackson, 1915a), there is a loss in the gastro-intes- 

 tinal tract of 27 and 26 per cent, respectively. 



In adult rats, during both acute and chronic inanition, there is a marked de- 

 crease in the gastro-intestinal tract, both filled and empty, the loss being about 57 

 per cent in each group (Jackson, 1915). 



Stomach. — As described under the section on materials and methods, the 

 stomach in the test rats and controls was weighed as a separate organ, instead of 

 being included with the intestines and pancreas as the gastro-intestinal group. 

 However, the stomach and intestines were removed and weighed full and empty in a 

 group of four normal newborn rats (average body-weight 5.0 grams) . The average 

 weight of the stomach and intestines with their contents was 0.317 gram. Their 

 weight, empty, was 0.128 gram, a value which agrees very well with that of Jackson 

 (1913), who gives their weights with and without contents as 0.297 and 0.117 gram 

 respectively. 



The full stomach in my normal newborns had an average weight of 0.1198 gram 

 (2.4 per cent of body-weight, 4.92 grams) . The empty stomach weighed 0.020 gram 

 or 0.41 per cent of the body-weight. Hatai (1918) gives the weight of the empty 

 stomach as 0.030 gram or 0.70 per cent of the body-weight, 4.2 grams. This value 

 is considerably higher than mine, probably due to a variation in technique. 



In my prenatal controls, the full stomach forms 0.7, 1.5, 1.5, 1.2, and 1.8 per 

 cent of the body-weight in Groups I to V, respectively (computed from table 5). 

 Thus the relative weight of the full stomach in the prenatal controls is much less 

 than that in the normal newborn rat. The small relative weight of the full stomach 



