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digestible food is that which supplies the body with the greatest quantity 
of reparative elements, requiring in the meantime the less possible 
exertion from the digestive functions." 
Now that we have made these few restrictions, perhaps it would 
not be without interest to examine the experiments made to determine 
the digestibility of food and the conclusions arrived at on the subject. 
Were the human body transparent, it would be an easy matter to 
follow the phases which alimentary bole undergoes from the moment it 
is formed in the mouth until it has given up all its nutritive particles in 
the'depth of the digestive tract. If the Creator, instead of kneading 
our body with clay, had made our tissues in crystal, anybody would, at 
aglance, determine the precise moment that the mouthful of bread, the 
piece of meat cease to be what they were, to become absorbable paste. 
But the opaque substance, of which our integuments are formed, hide to 
our view the phenomena that take place within ourselves, and we have to 
resort to certain crafts in order to uncover. the mysterious operations of 
the digestive system. 
For instance, Spallauzani would introduce alimentary substances in 
tubes or hollowed balls which he would make his patients .swallow. 
When these balls would be returned, either by vomiting or by a more 
indirect by-way, he would examine the modifications undergone by the 
s ubstances contained inside. 
But we may easily understand, that as these foreign bodies were 
rejected at indeterminate hours, it was difficult to obtain, by these experi- 
ments, anything like serious and reliable results. 
Gosse, of Geneva, was endowed with a peculiar privilege: he could 
vomit whenever he wanted to. He availed himself of this talent to study 
the degree of digestibility of foods. He observed that the substances 
which he would most easily digest, that is, within one or two hours, 
were: Fresh boiled eggs, milk, lamb, veal, fresh fish, gruel, potatoes. 
I le would take four to six hours to digest : pork, hard eggs, oysters and 
pastry other substances would remain very long in the stomach such 
as: rind of pork, orange peels, mushrooms. 
I must confess, gentlemen, that we cannot grant much credit to 
these experiments, deprived as they were of the accuracy exacted by a 
truly scientific method. But it is not so with regard to the knowledge 
