A critique of certain methods of gastric analysis / by David L. Edsall.

  • Edsall, David Linn, 1869-1945.
Date:
[1901]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A critique of certain methods of gastric analysis / by David L. Edsall. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    elaborate of these it is generally admitted that the only one that has any strong claim to accu- racy is that devised by Sjoeqvist and subsequently modified by Sjoeqvist himself and by a number of other authors, particularly by Salkowski and Fawin- szy and v. Jaksch. If everything claimed for this method be admitted, it must still be granted that the necessity for somewhat elaborate apparatus and for numerous solutions, together with the fact that it requires a good deal of time, make it practically use- less to the clinician and rob it of much of its value to the research student. Further, several investi- gators consider the method unreliable, and Leo in particular has demonstrated satisfactorily that the phosphates are a constant source of error, and that if any ammonium chloride chances to be present in the gastric contents it adds to the uncertainty. The method is now used almost solely for testing the accuracy of results obtained in research, and its use even for this purpose is of doubtful value. The dif- ficulty in obtaining satisfactory results in determin- ing the total HC1 is indicated by Sjoeqvist himself, who states that any attempt to provide an exact method of determining the HC1 quantitatively is cer- tain to meet with obstacles that cannot be overcome. Much of the eagerness to discover such a method was the result of the somewhat unreasoning enthusi- asm that ensued upon the introduction of chemical methods for the diagnosis of gastric diseases and the rather general tendency to believe that such methods could be made to a large degree to supersede bedside diagnosis. I think that one is now justified in stating that the value of chemical examination of gastric con- tents has been largely overrated and is still overrated by many special writers upon this subject. It is in most instances much less valuable than proper physical examination of the patient, particularly when the