THE INFLUENCE OF BILE ON GASTRIC MOTILITY

¹ From the Department of Surgery, Wayne University College of Medicine, Detroit, Michigan

1. When certain dried whole biles or bile salts are placed in a fasting dog's stomach during the resting phase, gastric hunger contractions are produced.

2. When the foregoing substances are placed in a fasting dog's stomach during the contraction phase, transient inhibition occurred in slightly more than half of the experiments. This result roughly parallels the findings using water.

3. Choline, in a concentration found in dried bile, does not call forth contractions from the quiescent phase and produces inhibition of contractions approximately as did bile.

4. Several magnesium salts produced occasional contractions during the resting phase in approximately 43% and caused inhibition of contractions in 85%.

5. Potassium chloride, on the other hand, produced definite contractions during the quiescent phase and diminished the tone during the contraction phase.

6. The feeding of certain foods such as fat, sugar and gelatin markedly inhibited hunger contractions and only occasionally did bile call forth contractions in the resting phase thus induced.

7. The ingestion of beef heart produced contractions similar to hunger contractions but these contractions at times were of reduced magnitude.

8. Neither the mechanism of the bile effect nor the exact substance producing this effect are known, but suspicion that the vagal components are involved seems warranted since atropine obliterates the effects of bile and certain of the bile components.