Digestive Studies in Children

Abstract

Balance studies and blood analyses of absorbed material give only indirect information about the processes underlying digestion and absorption from the small intestine. More definitive knowledge of these processes can be derived from studies of the composition of the content from different parts of the small intestine during digestion and absorption. Such knowledge has been obtained on normal adults by intubation studies (Borgström et al., 1957). The present paper reports similar studies both in normal children and in children in whom the clinical findings indicated disturbances in the digestive or absorptive processes or both. Experiment General Design of the Experiment.—Af-ter a meal has been taken, the stomach transfers the gastric content to the duodenum in small portions over a considerable time, the rate of emptying being dependent inter alia on the size and composition of the meal (Hunt, 1959). Each portion is handled individually by the intestine, undergoing further