The Effect of Antiperistaltic Bowel Segments on Intestinal Emptying Time

Abstract

In the<i>Johns Hopkins Report</i>in 1896, Mall¹stated that the reversal of an intestinal segment was fatal to an animal. This statement has appeared unchallenged in Physiology textbooks for many years, although investigators^2,3have found that it is not necessarily true. When Hammer et al.⁴reversed the entire duodenum in a series of dogs in 1952, the animals survived. It was found that they developed a marked delay in the emptying time of the stomach and that both the reversed segment of duodenum and the stomach dilated. After approximately six months many of the animals in the series developed jejunal ulcers at the site of the gastrojejunostomy. Further studies by Hammer et al.^5,6showed that animals could survive the removal of 80% of the small intestine if a short segment Was reversed. However, if a segment was not reversed, the animals usually died of starvation