Hunger Measured by Balloons (Dec, 1929)
Hunger Measured by Balloons
SWALLOWING small rubber balloons after fasting from 15 to 44 hours, and then causing intense pangs of hunger by taking an insulin injection, sound like making a martyr of oneself for science. Yet this is the program submitted to by a number of men in the laboratory of Prof. A. J. Carlson and Dr. P. Quigley, of the University of Chicago. The insubstantial meal of balloons was taken so that the movements of the digestive tract might be measured. The rubber bubbles were connected with the outside world by means of slender tubes, to which instruments were attached for the measurement of changes of pressure in the balloons caused by contractions of the stomach and intestine.