UNEXPLAINED GASTRIC ANACIDITY

With the introduction of histamine as a stimulus to gastric secretion it became necessary to revise preexisting ideas about gastric anacidity, since it was found that many people who failed to secrete free acid after a meal of bread, gruel or alcohol gave a normal or nearly normal response after stimulation by the more powerful agent. In fact, total inability of the stomach to secrete acid now appears to be an uncommon condition, which is in contrast to the older observations that indicated that anacidity was to be found in from 5 to 40 per cent of people without obvious gastric disease. 1 During the past few years we have studied the gastric secretion of about five hundred persons, with and without digestive symptoms, by means of the histamine test. Failure to produce free hydrochloric acid (when tested with dimethyl-amino-azobenzene) occurred in the following conditions: (1) invariably in cases of