SOUKCE OF THE ACIDITY OF THE GASTRIC JUICE. 24:9 



accounted for by the proportion of bases obtained by ulti- 

 mate analysis. There is evidence sufficiently positive to 

 show that there is no hydrochloric acid in the gastric juice, 

 in a condition which allows the fluid to present the reactions 

 which are observed when this acid exists in a free state. If 

 there be any hydrochloric acid not in combination with me- 

 tallic bases, it is united with organic matter in such a way as 

 to prevent the manifestations of its ordinary properties, ex- 

 cepting that of acidity. The fact that some of the mineral 

 acids can be made to unite in this- way with albuminoid sub- 

 stances lends color to this supposition ; although further in- 

 vestigations are necessary to demonstrate that this takes place 

 in the gastric juice. 



Ordinary Saline Constituents of the Gastric Juice. It 

 has been experimentally demonstrated that artificial fluids, 

 containing the organic principles of the gastric juice and the 

 proper proportion of free acid, are endowed with all the di- 

 gestive properties of the normal secretion from the stomach ; 

 and that these properties are rather impaired when an excess 

 of its normal saline constituents is added, or when the rela- 

 tion of the salts to the water is disturbed by concentration. 

 Boudault" and Corvisart evaporated two hundred grammes 

 of the gastric juice of the dog to dryness, and added to the 

 residue fifty grammes of water. They found that the fluid 

 thus prepared, containing four times the normal proportion 

 of saline principles, did not possess by any means the ener- 

 gy of action on alimentary substances of the normal secre- 

 tion. 1 These facts have led physiologists to attach little im- 

 portance to the ordinary saline principles found in the gas- 

 tric juice. 



In the various analyses of the pure juice from the human 

 subject and the inferior animals, particularly dogs, chemists 

 have discovered the chlorides of sodium, calcium, potassium, 



J Quoted by LOXGET, op. cit., tome i., p. 204. 



