Maximal stimuli

Abstract

The fractional test meal was criticised because the meal itself diluted the gastric secretions. To overcome this difficulty the meal was replaced by a non-oral stimulus. Ehrmann tried pilocarpine in 1912³⁵⁷ but found it produced too many side-effects. In 1920 Popielski⁹³² showed that histamine stimulated the gastric secretion of acid in the dog, and 2 years later Carnot, Koskowski and Libert²¹⁹ elicited a similar response in man. However, a ‘fractional test meal’ using histamine had all the disadvantages of the other test meals.²⁷⁴