Fat Absorption from the Stomach. 



183 



in (1043) 



The question of fat absorption from the stomach. 



By Emil J. Baumann. 



[From the Sheffield Laboratory of Physiological Chemistry, Yale 

 University, New Haven, Connecticut.] 



In 1889, Klemperer and Scheuerlen 1 found that no fat was 

 absorbed from the stomach. They were able to recover 99.5 per 

 cent, of the fat introduced into ligated stomachs of dogs after six 

 hours. Within the last fifteen years, however, a number of 

 investigators have published histological observations, from which 

 they have concluded that gastric fat absorption does occur. 



With the hope of obtaining some decisive evidence in relation 

 to this question, two physiological-chemical methods, other than 

 those previously employed, have been applied. Fat was intro- 

 duced into the ligated stomachs of cats and dogs and a study of 

 blood-fat content made in the one case, and in the second it was 

 attempted to discover whether or not any fat left the lumen of 

 the stomach by the use of fat stained with Sudan III. The 

 animals were kept under anesthesia during the experiments. 



In neither case could any fat be shown to leave the stomach, 

 although histological studies of the gastric mucosa of the same 

 animals gave results similar to those reported by Weiss, 2 Lamb, 3 

 Greene and Skaer 4 and others, showing that histologically demon- 

 strable fat had entered the stomach walls. 



Since no fat could be shown to have left the stomach by way of 

 circulating fluids, it is concluded that no absorption occurs. The 

 histological findings are explained by assuming that the fat 

 present in the gastric cells entered by purely physico-chemical 

 processes. 



1 Klemperer and Scheuerlen, Zeit.f. Klin. Med., 1889, 13, 370. 

 1 Weiss, Pfluger's Arch., 1912, 144, 540. 

 'Lamb, Jour. Physiol., 1910, 40, xxiii. 



* Greene and Skaer, Amer. Jour. Physiol., 1912, 29, xxxvii; ibid., 1913, 32, 358. 



