I. On the source of free hydrochloric acid in the gastric juice

Abstract

The long-disputed position of Prout that the gastric juice contains free hydrochloric acid, was at length established by C. Schmidt, who, in an absolute quantitative analysis of the juice, found about twice as much hydro­chloric acid as was required to neutralize all the bases present. The pro­longed discussion of this subject (now since 1823) has brought to light, through the researches of Lassaigne, Tiedemann and Gmelin, Berzelius, Blondlot, Claude Bernard, Schwann, and numerous others, the unmistakeable evidence of the presence of lactic acid and of acid phosphates in the gastric juice, which latter might or might not be due to the presence of lactic or hydrochloric acid. A point of special interest to the chemist and physiologist still remained, and was this: How couldfree hydrochloric acid be secreted from the bloody which is an alkaline fluid ? The blood freshly drawn consists of a fluid (the plasma) in which there are swimming myriads of exceedingly minute irregularly spheroidal bodies (the corpuscles). The plasma consists of two bodies, one of which, the fibrine, spontaneously separates from the other, the serum. The corpuscles are little sacs of delicate animal membrane enclosing a fluid. This fluid has an acid reaction, and its ash contains a monobasic alkaline phosphate. The fibrine of the plasma contains, according to Virchow, a glycero-phos-phate of lime, though the plasma, as a whole, has an alkaline reaction, and contains in its ash a great measure (11 per cent.) of chloride of sodium.