The main purpose of this investigationwas to observe the effects of the decoctionof Flos Caryophylli

Rhizoma Alpiniae offici-narum and Semen Alpiniae katsumadai ongastric secretion in dogs.These herbs wereused in Chinese medicine for a long time inthe treatment of gastric ailments.Four chronic experimental dogs provi-ded with“three way Parlov pouch”wereused.The drugs were introduced into themain stomach and the pure gastric juice se-creted by Pavlor pouch was collected.Thesecretory volume

total acid in milliequiva-lants and pepsin concentration in the gastricjuice were measured.The main results wereas follows:（1）When saline solution wasintroduced into the main stomach

the totalacid output and pepsin concentration werenot changed.After infusion into the mainstomach of 0.2% acetylcholine

the totalacid output was increased ten-fold but pep-sin concentration was unaffected.Introduc-tion to the main stomach of decoction ofSemen Alpiniae katsumadai failed to stimu-late acid secretion but increased pepsin concen-tration.The decoction of Flos caryophyllicaused an increase in acid secretion by sixfoldand in pepsin concentration by 26.9%.Thedecoction of Rhizoma Alpiniae officinarumwas also found to stimulate acid secretionmarkedly but to a lesser degree than that ofFlos caryophylli

however

it had no effecton pepsin concentration（2）Prior admi-nistration intravenously of atropine sulfatecaused a marked inhibition of the effect ofdecoction of Flos caryophylli when thelatter was introduced into the main sto-mach.These resuhs indicate that among thethree Chinese drugs mentioned above theFlos caryophylli has a strong effect on bothgastric acid and pepsin secretion.