292 



Society Proceedings (122). 



celery, dandelion, lettuce, and parsley all contain noteworthy amounts 

 of vitamin-B. The details of the investigation will be published 

 elsewhere. 



130 (1877) 



An experiment on the absorption of glucose given by rectum. 



By ROGER S. HUBBARD and DAVID C. WILSON. 



[From the Clifton Springs Sanitarium, New York.] 



For many years it has been accepted by clinicians that glucose 

 given by rectum is absorbed immediately into the blood, and sur- 

 geons constantly use such a procedure as a part of their post- 

 operative therapy. Because of the difficulties attending the pro- 

 cedure there are comparatively few controlled experiments on the 

 effect of glucose so administered in the literature. The effect of 

 carbohydrate feeding on acetonuria has been clearly demonstrated 

 by many experiments during the past few years, and it was deter- 

 mined to test the rectal absorption of glucose by studies of the 

 effect produced upon experimental acetonuria. 



The subject of the experiment (one of the authors, D. C. W.) 

 was a man 5 ft. 9! in. tall who weighed 165 pounds, and whose 

 basal metabolism, as measured by the portable Benedict calorim- 

 eter was 1700 calories. He received the diet recently discussed 

 by Hubbard and Wright 1 for four days. This diet furnished 2,142 

 calories — twenty per cent, more than the basal requirement — and 

 consisted of 54 grams of protein, 54 grams of carbohydrate, and 

 190 grams of fat. Ten per cent, of the calories in this diet are 

 furnished by protein, ten per cent, by carbohydrate, and eighty 

 by fat 2,3 . The total food intake was probably not sufficient for 

 the needs of the subject. 



Acetonuria developed gradually as shown in Table I, and on 

 the fourth day of the experiment, before the acetone excretion 

 had reached its highest level, an enema consisting of 300 c.c. of a 

 5 per cent, glucose solution was given. Table II shows figures for 

 the morning of the day before the enema was given, for the speci- 



1 Hubbard, R. S. and Wrigh:, F. R., J. Biol. Chem., 1922, 1, 361. 



2 Zeller, H., Arch. Physiol., 1914, p. 213. 



• Shaffer, P. A., J. Biol. Chem., 1921, xlvii, 449. 



