VIII. On the immunity enjoyed by the stomach from being digested by its own secretion during life

Abstract

In a communication, bearing the above title, that was read before the Royal Society, January 8, 1863, I brought forward experimental evidence which had conducted me to view the immunity enjoyed by the stomach from being digested by its own secretion during life, as resulting from the neutralizing influence on the acidity of the gastric juice exerted by the stream of alkaline blood flowing through its parietes. The opposition that this view received on the evening of its announcement induced me to extend my experiments, and as from the additional results obtained some important confirmatory evidence can be adduced, I have deemed it desirable to present this further communication, in which the whole subject is concisely reviewed with the aid of the new matter that has been brought to light. John Hunter directed attention to the point under consideration in a paper entitled “On the Digestion of the Stomach after death,” which is contained in the Philosophical Transactions for 1772. After adverting to the fact that in occasional instances, especially in persons who have died of sudden and violent deaths, the stomach is found so dissolved at its greater extremity as to have allowed of the escape of its contents into the abdominal cavity, and, without an actual perforation occurring, that there are very few dead bodies in which some degree of digestion of the coats of the organ may not be observed, Hunter gives reasons for concluding that the condition described must be owing to the action of the digestive fluid after the occurrence of death, and not the result of disease in the living subject. The stomach being thus affirmed to be susceptible of digestion by its own secretion after death, it became necessary to account for its not undergoing a similar process of digestion during life. According to Hunter’s view it was the “living principle” that afforded the required protection to the living organ.