SUMMARY Acute ethanol intoxication was studied in 38 Wistar rats, 18 on a balanced dietand 20 on a high fat diet, fed by gavage on 47 % ethanol in a dosage of from 3 to 12 g/kg body weight daily for periods ranging from three to 16 days. No macroscopic changes in pancreas or liver were found in any of these animals. Histological changes (venous congestion of the pancreas, the liver, and the kidneys) were found in rats given 4 g or more per kilogram. The only difference between the findings in rats given a balanced diet and those given a high fat diet was the development of fatty livers in the latter group.Chronic ethanol intoxication was studied in 45 Wistar rats, on a balanced diet, which were given 20% ethanol freely for 20 to 30 months. More than half the animals developed pancreatic lesions very similar to those of human chronic pancreatitis. The pathological changes, in foci surrounded by normal pancreatic tissue, were a reduction in acini, duct multiplication (probably by neogenesis), protein plugs, sometimes calcified in the ducts and sclerosis. Samples of pancreatic juice from four animals exposed to ethanol contained significantly higher protein concentrations than samples taken from two control animals. Protein precipitates appeared spontaneously in the pancreatic juice of the animals exposed to ethanol, but not in that of the controls. These findings are very similar to those in alcoholic pancreatitis in man, which has thus been reproduced for the first time in experimental animals. Beta-cell adenomata of the islets of Langerhans were observed in four of the rats exposed to ethanol.

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The action of cholecystokinin (CCK) and caerulein upon the rabbit sphincter of Oddi was investigated by eiectromyography, manometry and measuring of the flow. Intravenous injection of CCK resulted in a marked rise of the sphincter activity with a maximum at the 1st min and return to the basal level at the 10th min. Injection of increasing doses of hormone showed that the effect was proportional to the logarithm of the dose. The same results were obtained with caerulein. Parallely, CCK provoked a rise of the biliary pressure also proportional to the logarithm of the dose and a reduction to the biliary flow. The discrepancies between these results and some other experiments are discussed. It is concluded that, in the rabbit, CCK increases the activity of the sphincter of Oddi.

In several species, bicarbonate and calcium concentrations of pancreatic juice are known to vary during the different phases of pancreatic secretion. The effects of these variations on the saturation of juice with calcium carbonate, a critical factor for the formation of pancreatic stones, are not known. In this work, we studied the saturation degree of pancreatic juice with calcium carbonate in six unanesthetized beagle dogs equipped with Thomas cannulae during basal secretion and after bolus injections of cerulein (30 ng/kg) or secretin (0.25 units/kg). In the different samples of pure pancreatic juice, pH, PCO2, bicarbonate, and proteins were measured by standard methods. Total calcium (CaT) and ionized calcium (Ca2+) were determined using calcium-specific electrodes. Saturation with calcium carbonate was calculated by reference to the solubility product of calcite at 37 degrees C. Almost all the samples were found to be supersaturated with calcium carbonate but large variations of the saturation index were observed. In basal samples, obtained during periods of low secretion rate, the mean saturation index (3.35 +/- 3.01) was significantly lower than under secretion (12.10 +/- 5.14) or cerulein (18.01 +/- 8.42). This low basal saturation index, in spite of a high Ca2+ content, was explained by a low bicarbonate concentration (37.6 +/- 18.9 mmol/liter) and a high PCO2 (13.4 +/- 7.5 kPa). In contrast, in juice obtained after hormonal stimulation, PCO2 (4.8 +/- 1.6 kPa) was similar to plasma PCO2 (5.5 +/- 1.2 kPa).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)