THE OSMOTIC ACTIVITY OF GASTROINTESTINAL FLUIDS AFTER WATER INGESTION IN THE RAT

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Abstract
Following a 24 hr. fast rats were fed by stomach tube 2% of their body wt. of water containing 2.4 X 10-4 gs. Evans blue dye/ml. After 10 mins., the abdomen was incised, the fluid aspirated from the stomach, duodenum, and jejunum, and osmotic pressure (O.A.) detns. made on the Hill-Baldes vapor tension apparatus. For rats anesthetized (ether) 10 mins. after water adm. the O.A. averaged for the stomach 38 mEq.NaCl/kg. water, for the duodenum 133, and for the jejunum 175. On the avg. a total of 50% of the water given was recovered. Judging from the blue coloring of the mucosa the water advanced up to 46% of the length of small intestine. When the rats were anesthetized prior to water adm. the O.A. for the stomach was 20 mEq.NaCl/kg. water, for the duodenum 93, for the jejunum 142, while the vol. collected was 65% of that given and the % of the intestine over which the water advanced was 26. Most of the jejunal and some of the duodenal samples gave apparent hypertonic O.A. values, which increased with repeated readings. Since the increase in O.A. was prevented by adding 0.5% HgCl2 to the samples and since pure cultures of Lactobacillus acidophilus showed O.A. changes similar to those of the gut samples, bacterial activity is postulated as the cause of the anomalous O.A. readings for the gut fluids. Jejunal samples poisoned immediately after collection indicate the fluid is approx. isotonic at the time of collection.

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