The question whether a food component if introduced into the intermediary metabolism unchanged is capable of developing pyrogenic action has received renewed interest since Finkelstein1 first published his observations on alimentary intoxication.
Finkelstein designates this fever as alimentary fever because he believes it dependent on the pathologic effect of some food component introduced into a diseased intestinal tract.
Other observers have held similar views, instances of which are the efforts of Krehl and Matthes2 and Schultes3 to show this effect for albumoses; also the observations of Weill and Tiberius,4 who called attention to a definite relationship existing between temperature variations and food given artificially-fed infants.
The so-called buttermilk fever of Tugendreich5 has been regarded in the light of a sugar fever. Most observers agree that the food component develops pathologic activities only if there is primarily a lesion in the intestinal tract, an alteration in