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The basal secretion of the human stomach represents the juice secreted in the absence of all intentional and avoidable stimuli (1). The measurement of this phase of gastric secretion has been suggested by Bloomfield, Chen, and French as the simplest and most useful procedure in the study of clinical gastric physiology (2). These investigators demonstrated that the basal gastric secretion of hydrochloric acid was significantly greater in patients with duodenal ulcer than the values obtained in control subjects and in patients with gastric ulcer.Evidence regarding the basal secretion of pepsin however does not exist. Indeed there are considerable and serious deficiencies in our knowledge of the mechanism of pepsin secretion in man. This becomes especially clear if the meager existing evidence is contrasted with the extensive information which is now available regarding the mechanics of hydrochloric acid secretion (3). The present study was therefore designed to obtain quantitative evidence on the rate of secretion of pepsin by the human stomach under basal conditions, as the first step in a systematic study of the mechanics of this process. Subjects with a wide range of secretary activity, and a variety of clinical conditions, were studied. To extend the value of the information being collected, the simultaneous secretion of acid was also measured. The results obtained in control and peptic ulcer groups, and especially the correlation between the rates of enzyme and acid output, are presented in this report. METHODSSixty-one subjects with a considerable range of gastric secretary activity were employed in this study. Of these, 21 were individuals with clinically active duodenal ulcer, confirmed either by the roentgen demonstration of an ulcer niche, or by surgical resection. Four patients had benign gastric ulcers proven by histological examination following surgical resection, five had gastric carcinoma, ' This study was conducted with the aid of grants from the Altman Foundation and Wyeth, Incorporated. and five had addisonian pernicious anemia. The remaining 26 individuals, the control group, had no gastric disturbances or demonstrable lesions.All subjects had subsisted on a liquid diet without any medication or sedation on the day preceding the experiments. All food was withheld following the evening meal. The subjects were then studied 18 hours later, in the fasting state. The spontaneous (non-stimulated) gastric secretion was collected for a total period of three hours by gastric intubation. Aspirations were performed every five minutes to insure completeness of collection, and the successive aspirates were combined into a single specimen for each hour. The volumes of these gastric collections were measured, and their acidities were determined by colorimetric microtitration using bromphenol blue and phenol red as indicators. Pepsin was determined by Bucher, Grossman, and Ivy's modification (4) of the Anson-Mirsky method (5), using lyophilized bovine hemoglobin powder in the substrate (6). Hourly rates of out...