Vol. 60, 1909 - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

248
THE CHARLOTTE MEDICAL JOURNAL.
patient and forcibly compressed the thorax, is to be found in the mamma-hormone, dis-
He grasped the lower ribs, and by so doing covered by the above named investigator,
to some extent made pressure on the ab- It is known that from the very commeiicedominal
viscera and pushed them against ment of pregnancy there occurs a constant
the diaphragm.
" and increasing growth of the manimse, which
Professsr Shafer also at first advised a continues right up to term. Starling has
pad under the shoulders, but he afterwards been able to adduce proof that this enlargeabandoned
it as not only unnecessary, but ment is caused by a substance produced in
positively injurious. He places the patient the growing embryo, as by means of the
prone with his face turned to one side, and, injection of extracts of such embryo he snckneeling
either at the side of him or astride ceeded in causing enlargement of the
—astride is very much better—he places the mammee of virgin rabbits, such as would
palms of the hands on the loins as low down correspond to the early stages of gestation,
as possible: the thumbs should be parallel Zuelzer now infers that a similar specific
on either side of the spine. The palms of hormone may also exist for tlie function of
the hands should not touch, but be placed intestinal-peristalsis—in other words that
just above the iliac crests: the fingers just normal peristalsis is set up by a special
reach the lowest ribs. All that need be hormone. On the analogy of physiological
done by the operator is to press and relax experience, as, for example, the secretory
alternately by leaning forward on to the conditions of the pancreas and of Brunner's
outstretched anus, waiting a couple of sec- glands, it appeared very probable to him
onds, and then without removing the hands that the seat of this hormone might be in
throwing the body back on to his haunches, the mucous membrane of the stomach, and,
This pressure causes the expiration that in fact, he was able to demonstrate the exwould
normally be produced by the natural istenceof a peristalsis-hormone in that situresilience
of the abdominal wall. It must ation. A necessar\' proviso for obtaining
be noted that in an apparently drovvfned this hormone is that the stomach of the aniperson
(or one actually dead ) the abdomi- mal shall be at the height of digestion; from
nal wall is much less elastic and resilient the fasting stomach the hormone which
than in normal individuals. When the stimulates peristalsis cannot be produced,
weight of the body is thus thrown on to the This hormone, in like manner to all others,
arms, a pressure of forty, fifty, or sixty exerts its effects by way of the blood stream,
pounds is exerted, which is quite enough: When the peristaltic hormone is injected
this is much less likely to do any harm than intravenously into a rabbit there occurs,
is the Howard method, after the lapse of a few seconds, an ener-j
As Dent, from whose article in The Hos- getic peristalsis beginning at the duodenur
pital \\& quote at length, remarks, every and reaching to the rectum. By floating
new method introduced upon the medical the intestinal coils of a chloralized experi-1
stage seems to pass through certain definite mental rabbit in saline solution, the fecal
vicissitudes. At the outset full of promise, contents may be seen to be driven from i
it embarks