Output of Fecal Bacteria. 



63 



involved in some way. Experiments now in progress on the part 

 which platelets play in the formation of peptone plasma are re- 

 served for a separate communication. It may be stated here that 

 after injection of peptone into a dog, the platelets are not destroyed 

 (a statement often met with), although they disappear from cir- 

 culating blood, and that in the blood there appears a substance 

 similar in its actions to hirudin, which preserves platelets and 

 prevents formation of fibrin (antithrombin). 



37 (854) 



The output of fecal bacteria as influenced by fasting and by high 

 and low protein ingestion. 



By N. R. Blatherwick and P. B. Hawk. 



[From the Laboratories of Physiological Chemistry of Jefferson 

 Medical College and the University of Illinois.] 



By means of a seven-day fast the daily excretion of fecal 

 bacterial nitrogen by a 76-kilogram man (E) was reduced from 

 I -57 I gram to 0.101 gram, whereas the actual weight of the 

 excreted bacterial substance was reduced from 14.336 grams to 

 0.920 gram per day. The percentage of the fecal nitrogen which 

 was present as bacterial nitrogen was decreased from 55.82 per 

 cent, to 32.39 per cent, as a result of the fast. The percentage of 

 dry bacteria in dry feces was slightly increased. 



The output of bacterial nitrogen and the output of bacterial 

 substance were approximately the same on a low protein diet as 

 during fasting. With the ingestion of a high protein diet these 

 values underwent an immediate pronounced increase. 



The percentage of the fecal nitrogen which was composed of 

 bacterial nitrogen was about the same in the periods of low and 

 high protein ingestion. 



There was no definite relationship between the excretion of 

 fecal bacteria and that of urinary indican. 



The ingestion of 5.23 grams of nitrogen after the fast was 

 followed by an excretion of fecal bacteria which was only 1/14 

 as great as when four times that amount of nitrogen was ingested 

 before the fast. 



