Experimental gastric ulcer in albino rats

Conclusions

Ulcers can be obtained in the rumen of the stomach of rats with several types of diet if the rat is first starved for a week. That these ulcers are not produced simply by a nutritional deficiency is indicated by the fact that rats fed with agar-agar containing some dextrose showed few lesions although they had suffered as much loss in weight as if they had had no food.

The cause of the lesions may be the presence of unbuffered acid, although the experiments in which acid was fed did not give results which would support this view. The degree of ulceration did not seem to be influenced by the nutritive value of the diet given after the preliminary period of starvation. Eats given 5 per cent dextrose solution continued to lose weight, and yet had some of the mildest and shallowest of lesions. Eats on the stock diet were regaining their weight after the fast, and yet they developed serious lesions. Possibly the physical character of the diet had an influence, and the experiments with the smooth diet support this view. Experiments with sterilized lactalbumin suggest that infection of the food may have played a role in producing granulomatous lesions.