THE RELATION BETWEEN ANOREXIA, ANHYDREMIA AND GASTRIC ATONY IN DOGS DEPRIVED OF WATER

Abstract

Dogs in good nutritive state were fed an artificial ration complete in every known respect. Their appetite for this diet was excellent; repeated gastric tracings showed vigorous hunger contractions, good tonus variations and rhythm. Blood analyses revealed normal values for sugar, hemoglobin, total solids and chlorides. The animals were then deprived of water and the relationships between appetite, anhydremia and gastric motility studied. Five experiments were performed with 4 dogs. A moderate increase in blood concentration, an increase in hemoglobin value of less than 20%, was associated with a definite decrease in the motor activity of the empty stomach and partial or complete loss of appetite. A greater increase in blood concentration resulted in gastric atony in every case. In 1 instance, when characteristic hunger contractions were absent but some tonus changes persisted, the animal ate all food offered; in the other cases, however, where atony of the stomach was recorded, there was a complete loss of appetite. Since anhydremia is a sys-temic disturbance it is suggested that other organs, particularly muscles, may fail to function with optimum efficiency in the presence of a moderate degree of an-hydremia.