CHAP. II.] SURVIVAL AFTER REMOVAL OF STOMACH. 163 



Pollitzer found, like Fano, that antipeptone is without action on the 

 coagulation of" the blood. Albumoses possess an action which is 

 very much more marked and constant than amphopeptones. 



The period during which the blood remains uncoagulated, after 

 the introduction into the circulation of an albumose, varies between 

 20 minutes and several days. 



Hetero-albumose, in Pollitzer's hands, acted most uniformly, for in 

 no case in which it was used did the blood clot within a period 

 of 24 hours after injection. Seven injections were made with 

 amphopeptones. In three the blood clotted normally ; in four its 

 coagulation was delayed for 10, 20, 30 minutes and 12 hours, respec- 

 tively. Even when blood is mixed with solutions of albumoses after 

 it has been shed, the period of coagulation is usually delayed, some- 

 times very markedly so \ 



SECT. 15. THE PROCESS OF GASTRIC DIGESTION IN DISEASE. 



Before briefly glancing at the principal changes which the normal 

 process of gastric digestion exhibits in pathological conditions of the 

 organism as a whole, and in local affections of the stomach itself, it 

 appears desirable to discuss the interesting question how far gastric 

 digestion is to be considered prominent or essential amongst the 

 phenomena of the alimentary canal and of the organism. 



The physician is so constantly brought face to face with cases in 

 which a mere enfeeblement of the functions of the stomach leads to 

 prominent distress and profound malnutrition, ancj with others in 

 which a local gastric lesion reduces the patient to a state in which 

 life is threatened, and often lost, that the results of experiments per- 

 formed upon the lower animals, and now to be described and com- 

 mented upon, appear little short of inexplicable. 



The experiments of Heidenhain have been de- 

 scribed, in which the fundus of the stomach, or its pyloric 

 piete* removal P ort ion, were, as it were, eliminated from the ali- 

 of the stomach, mentary canal, and, it was pointed out, that after these 

 experiments the animal often survived. The question 

 as to whether the stomach, as a whole, might, in cases of cancer, be 

 removed in its entirety, consistently with the life of the patient, 

 therefore suggested itself. Accordingly Czerny and his pupils, 

 Kaiser and Scriba, carried out the removal of the entire stomach 

 of dogs, and with such remarkable success that, of two dogs operated 

 upon, one survived the operation for some years, regaining perfect 

 health, increasing indeed very greatly in weight, and differing appa- 



1 J. Pollitzer, ' On the Physiological Action of Peptones and Albumoses.' (From 

 the Physiolog. Institute, Heidelberg.) Journal of Physiology, Vol. vn. p. 283. A pre- 

 liminary notice of the results announced in this paper, was first published in the 

 VcrhandL d. Xaturhist. Med. Vereins zu Heidelberg, N. I. Bd. in. Hft. iv. 



112 



