Thirty first meeting. 



Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. December i6, igo8. 

 President Lee in the chair. 



1 5 (353) 



Reply and explanation to recent criticism of my experimental 

 study on effects of extirpation of the salivary glands 

 on the gastric secretion. 



By JOHN C. HEMMETER. (By invitation.) 



\From the Physiologic Laboratory of the University of Maryland, 



Baltimore^ 



It is not always a congenial task to have to reply to a criticism 

 of one's experimental work. To many a conservative thinker, the 

 policy contained in a remark attributed to Ludwig under a similar 

 circumstance, " Schweigen ist gold," may appeal as more expedient. 

 But yet, the dignified silence may be interpreted, by the one who 

 has advanced the criticism and even by the research worker and 

 general student of physiology, as a tacit approval to the fault find- 

 ing — in other words, as signifying that the criticism was deserved 

 and the work criticised defective. I find myself in this embar- 

 rassing position with regard to an article published in the " Pro- 

 ceedings of the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine, 

 1908, V, pp. 114-117," New York, by Dr. A. S. Loevenhart and 

 Dr. D. R. Hooker, entitled : "Note on the supposed presence of a 

 gastric hormon in the salivary glands." 



Although the physiology and pathology of digestion has been 

 my life work, yet, as one of the results of many years of labora- 

 tory teaching and training, I am loathe to insist dogmatically on 

 any of my opinions and am ready at any moment to be corrected and 

 to advance another step in the attainment oftruth. (" Experientia 

 fallax, Experimenta mendax.")' 



' But rather than dwell upon the moral side of scientific controversy I prefer to 

 refer to Sir Thomas Browne's " Religio medici," 1904 edition, p. 98. 



(33) 



