AS EARLY as 1906, Edkins1 reported that the intravenous administration of extracts of the mucous membrane of the antrum of the stomach stimulated gastric secretion, whereas similar extracts made from other parts of the stomach had little or no effect. In 1909, Edkins and Tweedy2 reported that the secretion of acid by the fundus of the stomach could be stimulated by introducing various food substances into the antrum which had been separated from the fundus by a diaphragm. As a result of these studies, and influenced, no doubt, by the recent work of Bayliss and Starling on pancreatic secretin, Edkins postulated that this stimulation of gastric secretion was due to a hormone which he named gastrin, and which was produced by the mucosa of the antrum in response to chemical stimulation by foodstuffs. This work of Edkins was not widely known and probably played no part in the