I have already described one of such pathological therapeutic
experiments; namely, on the dog whose vagi nerves were divided in the
neck. Other similar cases I can also call to mind. Our dog with the
two stomachs suffered at one time from a slight and transitory gastric
catarrh. It was then very interesting to observe that the pathological
process (which we were usually able to wholly guard against) spread
from the large to the small stomach. It manifested itself here in
an almost continuous slimy secretion of very slight acidity, but of
strong digestive power. At the beginning of the ailment, indeed before
it became fully established, the psychic stimulation was remarkably
effective (that is to say, still furnished juice in appropriate
quantity), while local excitants almost completely failed. One may
conceive that the deeper layers of the mucous membrane with the gastric
glands were still healthy, and thus easily thrown into activity by
central impulses, whilst the surface of the membrane with the end
apparatus of the centripetal nerves was already distinctly damaged.
I mention these, which I may call impressions rather than precise
observations, because I wish to point out what a fruitful field awaits
the investigator who wishes to study, with the aid of our present
methods, the pathological conditions of the digestive organs and their
treatment. Such an investigation is all the more desirable because
clinical study of the same subject (notwithstanding the zeal devoted to
it during the last ten years and the results derived therefrom) has to
contend with serious difficulties. We must not forget that the sound or
stomach-tube, the chief clinical instrument, is more uncomfortable than
the ordinary form of gastric fistula which was previously practised on
animals, and yet the physiology of the stomach, even with the aid of
the latter, made no material progress for many long years. Nor is this
difficult to understand. The investigator obtained through the fistula
a mixture of substances from which it was difficult, or even at times
impossible, to decide anything.
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