34 



Scientific Proceedings (31). 



Especially welcome are such corrections when they emenate 

 from such an esteemed friend and talented worker as Dr. Loeven- 

 hart. The original worker whose results are criticised has the 

 right, however, to demand that his special point of inquiry (" Frage- 

 stellung ") and all the methods of experimentation, operative, phys- 

 iologic and chemic, shall be conscientiously repeated on, at least, 

 an equal number of the same kind of animals, successfully nursed 

 through the identical operative procedures. He has a right to 

 demand a scrupulous regard for detail, and for all the finer distinc- 

 tions made in his application of methods, some of which may have 

 required years for their perfection in his hands and those of his 

 associates. 



Let us investigate whether my friend, Dr. Loevenhart, has ful- 

 filled these indispensable, fundamental conditions that should pre- 

 cede destructive criticism. 



I sought to ascertain the effect of salivary gland extract in 

 dogs deprived of all four pairs of salivary glands, whose gastric 

 juice had been carefully studied before any operation of removing 

 the glands was undertaken. Sometimes the removal had no very 

 marked effect ; but in those dogs in which it did, I tried to ascer- 

 tain whether the depressed gastric secretion could be restored or 

 not by salivary gland extract. I tried to study the effect on a 

 secretion already abnormally depressed in three series of dogs — 

 thoroughly recovered from the operation, allowing ten days to two 

 weeks, at least, for recovery. 



Dr. Loevenhart starts with normal dogs, as he supposes, and 

 expects to raise the gastric secretion qualitatively and quantitatively 

 above the normal. He seeks the effect of salivary gland extract 

 in raising a supposedly normal gastric secretion to a higher acidity 

 and proteolysis — an entirely different problem from mine. 



I have never published anything on the effect of salivary gland 

 extract on the normal gastric secretion of dogs. It is not asserted 

 that this extract can raise the gastric secretion above Jiormal, but 

 only that it may, under certain conditions, partially restore a gas- 

 tric secretion that is depressed beloiu normal. Dr. Loevenhart is 

 attempting to change a normal secretion to an abnormal (higher) 

 one. I studied the effect in restoring an abnormal secretion to a 

 normal one. 



