In certain cases the advantages of supplying by other than the oral route not only water and the electrolytes of the blood, but caloric values, have become more and more obvious. Various modes of doing this have been much discussed.1 Under conditions approximately normal, the administration of food, water and the necessary salts by mouth is sufficient, but in many diseases, and particularly in surgical cases, this route alone is unsatisfactory, either because the stomach and intestines will not absorb a sufficient amount of nutrition and water, or because physiologic rest of these organs is indicated.
McNealy2 and McNealy and Willems3 have shown that dextrose is apparently not absorbed by the colon, though salt solution is taken up more rapidly by the colon than by the ileum. They believe that the dextrose in enemas of dextrose solution is absorbed only if the ileocecal valve is incompetent and