EXCRETION OF NEUTRAL RED IN THE STOMACH IN ACHYLIA GASTRICA

Abstract

In 1908, Fuld¹ discovered that neutral red would appear in a Pavlov pouch after it was placed in the large stomach. Many years later, Finkelstein² found that it was practically the only dyestuff eliminated in appreciable quantities in the Pavlov pouches of dogs. In 1923, one year later, Glaessner and Wittgenstein³ applied this fact clinically. Finding that this dyestuff was nontoxic and not irritating locally, they injected 4 cc. of a 1 per cent watery solution intramuscularly in forty patients. They found that the appearance time of the neutral red in the stomach paralleled the acidity; i. e., in normal persons it was fifteen minutes; in hyperacidity, from five to eight minutes; in subacidity, from twenty to sixty minutes; and in achylia gastrica, it did not appear. In 1925, being interested in the possibility of improving our studies of gastric function, we⁴ repeated this work in