New-York tribune., 1911-11-19
Tissue; Photographing Digestion
Discovery of Plan to Make
Food Impervious to X-Ray
Reveals the Stomach
at Work.

cessfully, thanks TO an improved X-ra,
apparatus which to-day provides a pena.
trative ray capable Of passing through a
substance Ike the human body in one.
sixtieth OF the time required for such pas.
sage only few years back.
In order to obtain the rapid success,o,
Of exposures needed TO reproduce the eYAc,
of motion when run through tho moving
picture apparatus, this Increased rapidly
in taking the series was a prime necessity
But does every one know the principle In.
volyed in the taking Of moving picture?
Anything in motion is theoretically a,
rest for minute and successive fractions ~
time This may be proved very simply bv
looking steadily at a rapidly whlrrIns
wheel, the spokes Of which are not clearly
visible because Of the wheels rapid rota
/ ton; but If one winks quickly. while stll
| looking at the wheel, II will seem 70 ston
momentarily at each wink. when one viii
see the spokcs quite distinctly. Try that
experiment Of rapid winkng while looking
| steadily at one Of the wheels Of a swiftly
moving automobile. II illustrates well how
motion can be photographed by quick, Sue
cessiye clicks or "winks" OF the moving
picture camera Before looking at our cats
stomach in it's interesting work Of digest
ing it's bismuthized meal we should state
that. physiologically the stomach OF a cat
IS very much like that of human being,
or at least very much as human beings
, would be IL he ate leisurely and didn't try
to resume his business activities immedi-
ately afterward.
DR.. Cannon in his experiment placed the
cat between the apparatus and the screen
on which he hoped to throw the shadow
OF the cats stomach, the apparatus being
arranged with special view 10 complete
cat comfort during the process Of diges-
ton.
I'm about five minutes" said Dr. Cannon
in describing the experiment, after the
cat had eaten her meal Of bread and milk
and bismuth, the shadow OF the cats
stomach appeared vlsibly on the screen Of
the X-ray apparatus. The screen had been
placed above the cat, and the mechanism
for generating the X-ray itself was located
below her, the X-ray thus passing upward
through her body.
THE shadow which appeared on the
screen had the shape that any physiologist
would have expected, the shape that early
textbooks of physiology roughly liken to a
pear and for a few moments It remained
quiescent. Then the inner mechanism be-
gan to work with clocklike regularity, and
the outline OF the shadow began 10 move
on the screen in response TO a series OF
waves passing over its surface. For the
first time in history the eye Of a man
actually watched the movements Of the
stomach in a normal animal, and could
| see the process by which the stomach
churns and digests its contents and then
passes them on to the intestines.
THE waves, starting near the middle OF
the stomach and moving downward toward
what might be called the threshold Of the
intestines, recurred at about ten second
intervals, and when one wave was just
beginning several others could be seen
running on ahead OF 1t. During the diges-
| ton OF a single meal Of bread and milk
and bismuth the total number OF these
waves reached the amazing total Of about
twenty-six hundred"
Such was the process as it went regularly
and comfortably forward In the stomach
| or a cOnlenleQ anu CoHllOItdD'o NoN' '"'
simple addition OF bismuth TO the food, SO
as to render it impervious to the H-ray,
being all that was necessary TO enable US
to see IT.
What other organs besides the stomach
we may yet view during their functioning
by some method no one can tell. To see
organic functionng while it is actually oc-
curing is of the greatest Importance; for
only by the closest scrutiny OF functional
processes could various diseases, particu-
larly those of degeneration. be early de-
tected At all events the day seems not very
far distant when direct observation VIII
give a surety to the physicians declara-
ton Of what We have" often sadly lseX'
ing at present.