iNGESTION OF FOOD INCREASES THE APPETITE. 1H 



therefore, a less feeling of appetite, than the food which passes the whole 

 way into the stomach. The appetite, the eager craving after food, is, 

 indeed, a very complex sensation, and often not merely the need of the 

 organism for food material is necessary for its excitement, but also 

 a condition of thorough well-being, together with a normal healthy 

 feeling in all parts of the digestive tract. For this reason it is easy to 

 understand how patients who have diseased sensations in these organs, 

 and who have no feeling of appetite, no desire for food, remember the 

 sensations, whether consciously or unconsciously, even when they 

 are no longer present. Cases are known to neuropathologists where 

 people with gastric anaesthesia suffered from this loss of appetite. 

 Such patients are no longer conscious of having stomachs, and dislike 

 the idea of eating because the food, as they express it, appears to 

 fall into a strange empty sack. In this way one can also conceive how 

 the appetite becomes lost in cases of long-continued obstruction of the 

 alimentary tube. The patients forget their stomachs, and in such 

 instances direct introduction of food into the organ, after an operation, 

 may suddenly bring back the appetite. 



As a further illustration, I may be permitted to give an instance 

 from my own personal experience. After an illness with which a 

 transient but high fever was associated, although otherwise fully 

 recovered, I had lost all desire for food. There was something curious 

 in this complete indifference towards eating. Perfectly well, I only 

 differed from others in that I could with ease abstain from all food. 

 Fearing that I should collapse, I resolved on the second or third day to 

 endeavour to create an appetite by swallowing a mouthful of wine. I 

 felt it quite distinctly pass along the oesophagus into the stomach, 

 and literally at that moment perceived the onset of a strong appetite. 

 This observation teaches that the tactile sensation of the stomach at 

 the moment of entry of food, is capable of awakening or increasing 

 the appetite. It is known that withholding food from the organism, 

 or in other words, the creation of a necessity for food, does not lead 

 immediately, nor in all cases, to the production of an appetite ; to a 

 passionate craving for food. How often does it happen that the 

 ordinary hour for a meal has struck, and yet, owing to some keenly 

 interesting occupation, not the least desii-e for food is felt ? It is 

 known to everybody, indeed it has become a proverb, that real appetite 

 first sets in with eating. If this be true, the initial impulse towards 

 awakening an appetite may originate in the stomach and not in the 

 buccal cavity. When we spoke above of the desire for food being 

 the excitant of the secretory nerves of the stomach, we naturally meant 

 the passionate and conscious longing for food, that which is called 

 "appetite " and not the latent need of the organism for nourishment, the 



