INFECTIONS OF THE DIGESTIVE TRACT 301 



entire extent of the small intestine and is enabled there 

 to decompose sugar with the formation of butyric and 

 other acids. Such an opportunity to grow upon a car- 

 bohydrate medium might lead to a considerable in- 

 crease in the number of anaerobes. These on passing 

 into the large intestine would find an opportunity to 

 set up their putrefactive activities on proteids after 

 the carbohydrates had been exhausted. 



The consequences of chronic excessive saccharo- 

 butyric intestinal putrefaction are by no means limited 

 to disturbances of the digestive tract. The formation 

 of an excessive quantity of the higher fatty acids may 

 be presumed to lead in some instances to the absorp- 

 tion of an excessive quantity of these acids. As, how- 

 ever, the organism is able to oxidize the fatty acids 

 with great readiness, one would hardly expect that so 

 long as the oxidizing powers of the organism are un- 

 impaired there would be any evidence of an increased 

 excretion of organic acids in consequence of this ex- 

 cessive absorption. An experiment made at my sug- 

 gestion by Dr. A. J. Wakeman bears out this view. A 

 dog weighing about eighteen pounds was fed on a fixed 

 amount of meat, namely one kilo daily, in order to 

 study the influence of the feeding of ammonium buty- 

 rate upon the excretion of the nitrogen of ammonia. 

 During the preparatory period of nine days determina- 

 tions were made of the total nitrogen and of the nitrogen 

 of ammonia excreted by the urine. The total nitrogen 

 of ammonia excreted daily amounted to between one 

 hundred and one hundred and fifty-six milligrams 



