Evening star., 1938-04-03
BRAIN '|NSTOMACH'
REGULATES EATING.
Rats Fight for vitamin B
Food Before Seeing
or Smelling It.
BY STEPHEN ]. McDONOUGH,
Associated Press Science Writer.


BALTIMORE, April a. Evidence
that the stomach has brain, or a
very similar regulator, was reported
today before the closing session OF the
Federated Biological Societies.
Three Johns Hopkins University SCI
entists found this deep-seated director
OF what is best to eat in experiments
on rats. They declared that it prob
ably also works on man, or would il
given the chance. 1t is not the result
of thinking about what to eat but Is
an overwhelming drive to secure what
Is necessary but missing in the diet.
Dr. Bruno Barelare. jr.; DR.. L. EN-
NETT Hole, jr., and DR.. Curt P. Rich
ter made the discovery by withholding
various foods, including vitamin B. the
vitamin which prevents nervous dis
orders and beri-beri, from a group
of rats.
Fight to Get Portions.
and ate large amounts Of fatty foods,
disdaining carbohydrates. But when
pan containing vitamin B was
brought toward them they went into a
wild scramble to get it, without hav-
ing had chance to see or smell it.
When an effort was made to take
it away the rats fought to keep it,
using both front paws to hold on to
the pan until they could get enough" "
the Johns Hopkins scientists said.
DR.. Richter added that he had found
the same phenomena in female rats
during three periods-before mating,
after mating and during the time they
were nursing their litters.
An adequate diet composed of II
different foods was available to them
in separate pans throughout the ex-
pertinent All of the female rats
behaved in almost exactly the same
way. While they were pregnant they
consumed vastly larger quantities Of
fat, protein and carbohydrate, and
much more salt. sodium phosphate and
calcium, while their appetites for
wheat germ Oil and cod liver oil re-
manned about constant.
While nursing their young they
greatly increased their intake Of all
foods, more than doubling the amount,
until nursing ceased This is evidence,
DR. Reichter declared. that there is
some driving force in the selection
of food if it is given a chance to
operate
Surgical Shock Treated.
A new method OF preparing a pa
tient for an operation and helping to
lessen the shock Of it was announced
by DR.. Stephen Karady OF McGill
University. Toronto, Canada. One
cause OF surgical shock, he declared.
is the release Of histamine, a poisonous
substance, from the body tissues, caus-
ing fall in blood pressure and a
decrease in the circulating blood.
He found, however. that the poison
Is It's own cure. BY progressively
increasing doses of histamine given
over Today period the shock was
greatly lessened and the volume of
circulating blood was increased.
Rickets, the bone-bending disease
due to lack of vitamin D, is also a
hereditary disease, DR.. Louise Pearce
OF the Rockefeller Institute for Med
lcal Research told the biologists, in
dlcatlng that parents who have or
have had rickeLs mus be particularly
careful to protect their children
against it.
BY breeding strain of rabbits, she
declared. 1t was possible to develop
a group in which severe rIcket de-
formlties developed which were SINH
lar to those which occur in human
beings.