Effect of coffee and tea on gastric secretion / by W. Horsley Gantt.

  • Gantt, W. Horsley (William Horsley), 1892-1980.
Date:
1929?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Effect of coffee and tea on gastric secretion / by W. Horsley Gantt. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    1/4 (page 1)
    Reprinted from The Journal of Laboratory and Clinical Medicine. St Louis. Vol. XIV. No. 3 0. P. 917. July, 1929. By W. Horsley Gantt, M.D., U. 8. S. Russia HE almost universal use of coffee and tea as beverages among civilized A people is an important reason why we should thoroughly understand their action. In many European countries indeed they furnish the main water intake, especially in Russia where the drinking of quantities of weak tea is a habit prevalent among all classes. The purpose of our experiments was to find out the chemical action on the secretion of the stomach of coffee and tea when taken with food. As is well known, the secretion of the stomach to any substance which is eaten consists of two components: the “psychical’7 or nervous secretion, and the chemical secretion. This was shown first in 1852 by Bidder and Schmidt and later by the sham feeding experiments of Pavlov.1 As the nervous secre¬ tion, being a conditioned reflex, varies with each individual according to whether he likes or dislikes tea or coffee and with many other factors, we de¬ sired to eliminate this so as to get the pure chemical or unconditioned effect. We first tried to introduce the mixture of bread and tea into the stomach through a stomach tube. Here we met with several difficulties: the food passed slowly along the tube and often clogged; it was difficult to prevent the animal from seeing the food and tasting it when the tube tip was pulled out over the tongue; the introduction of the tube evoked the passive-defensive reaction in the dog which might have a disturbing influence on the gastric secretion. Our dog had already a stomach pouch, according to Pavlov’s method, so that the secretion could be collected and measured accurately. In order to overcome the above-mentioned difficulties, we made a gastric fistula in the large stomach, and began our experiments about three weeks after operation when the secretion had returned to normal. Our dog was about three years old, and had been used in the laboratory for more than a year previously, having shown a constant and regular gastric secretion. The experiments were done as follows: no food was given the morning of the experiment, the last feeding being on the previous evening at 6 p.m. The stomach was first washed clean with ordinary water at room temperature; if there was any secretion we waited until it disappeared or until the contents of the stomach became alkaline. The dog was put on its back, and the bread and tea mixture was introduced through the gastric fistula. Every precaution was *From the Physiological Laboratory of Prof. Pavlov at the Institute of Experimental Medicine, Leningrad. Received for publication, September 28, 1928.