Alimentary Azotemia Due to Whole Blood Absorption from the Gastrointestinal Tract

Conclusions

(1) Intragastric administration of whole blood in 12 experiments on 6 dogs caused a uniform and considerable rise in the blood urea nitrogen. (2) The increase seemed due primarily to absorption of digested blood. No evidences of starvation, dehydration, anemia, hypochloremia or shock were present in these dogs to explain the phenomenon. (3) It seems logical to assume that much of the rise in blood urea nitrogen observed in clinical cases of bleeding peptic ulcer is due to the same phenomenon, the resultant azotemia being of the alimentary type.