NATURAL RESISTANCE AND FATIGUE 153 



not difficult of diagnosis, for the salient characteristic 

 is the atonicity of the stomach. Believing such ato- 

 nicity to be due to the fatigue of the gastric muscula- 

 ture, the author injected intravenously into dogs 

 extracts of material taken from the stomachs of fast- 

 ing patients suffering from atony of the stomach. The 

 animals receiving such injections exhibited a slight 

 distress, and the results suggested the presence of a 

 fatigue toxin in such stomach contents, although it 

 must be admitted experiments of this type are not very 

 convincing. Because of this, the stomach muscula- 

 ture of normal dogs v^as fatigued by means of a rapidly 

 revolving cable introduced into the stomach by means 

 of the gyromele, or by recurrent tension brought about 

 by the alternate inflation and exhaustion of a rubber 

 bag inserted in the stomach (Turck, 1903). Both 

 these methods result in a stretching and relaxation 

 of the muscles, treatment v^hich von Uexkiill found 

 to be the most efifective method of stimulating muscle 

 by mechanical means. In the intact animal such treat- 

 ment does not result in a rapid fatigue of the muscle, 

 because the firm external abdominal muscles must be 

 fatigued before the gastric muscles can be stretched 

 sufficiently to cause a distinct state of fatigue. If, how- 

 ever, as in the experiments cited belov^, the animal's 

 abdomen is opened, the continued intermittent ten- 

 sion which is caused by either of the two methods men- 

 tioned above causes the gastric muscles to show signs 

 of fatigue, such as marked dilation, and failure to re- 

 spond to stimuli which ordinarily cause rhythmical 

 contractions of the organ. 



The muscles of such stomachs were removed by dis- 

 section, minced, and extracted with normal saline so- 



