10 GASTRIC DIGESTION OF PROTEINS 



while showing decided lowering of the hydrochloric acid is 

 nevertheless entirely able to digest. 23 



If free hydrochloric acid is to be derived from sodium 

 chloride, the latter must react with water in conformity with 

 the equation: NaCl + H 2 = NaOH + HC1. For each 

 molecule of hydrochloric acid thus separated a molecule of 

 sodium hydroxide must remain in the organism. This may 

 explain why at the height of the acid secretion the sodium 

 chloride excretion in the urine is diminished and why in the 

 ensuing period of resorption of the strongly acid contents 

 of the stomach more ammonia fails to be synthesized into 

 urea, being utilized to neutralize the free acid. 24 We may 

 conceive, too, why the body of an animal in the state of 

 chlorine starvation reacts to sodium chloride administration 

 by a notable increase of alkalinity of the urine (as pointed 

 out by the author's lamented friend, Leo Schwarz, in Hof- 

 meister's laboratory 25 ). The fact that the hydrochloric acid 

 of the gastric juice can be replaced by hydrobromic acid up 

 to a certain degree indicates that sodium bromide acts in a 

 comparable manner. 



Physicochemical Explanations. Attempts have been fre- 

 quently made to apply the modern ideas of physical chem- 

 istry to the problem of the production of HC1 in the gastric 

 juice. When the ion theory began slowly to penetrate into 

 the minds of biologists it came to be recognized that often an 

 explanation may be realized by expressing a problem in the 

 terms of the theory of ions. As a matter of fact, as you 

 know, if to-day a problem is laid before the great public, no 

 matter how learnedly, in technical phrases, the real meaning 

 is no more grasped than if it had been told in the Spanish or 

 Eussian language. Unfortunately here and there we can 



23 L. Rutimeyer (Basel), Zentralbl. f. innere Med., 1909, 233. 



W A. Miiller and P. S'axl (I. Med. Clinic, Vienna), Zeitschr. f. klin. Med., 

 56, 546, 1905; A. Loeb (Med. Clinic, S'trassburg), ibid., 56, 1905; S. A. Gam- 

 meltoft (Copenhagen), Zeitschr. f. physiol. Chemie, 75, 57, 1911. 



"L. Schwarz (Physiol. Chem. Instit., Strassburg), Hofmeister's Beitrage, 

 5, 56, 1903 ; cf ., ibid., also the work of Falck, M. Gruber, and Rosell. 



