OF FOOD AND HUNGER. 



stance giving rise to this opinion, is the continuance of hunger, 

 although food be taken in abundance, in cases of scirrhus pylorus 

 and enlarged mesenteric glands. Here, it is urged, the hunger 

 continues, because the body receives no nourishment. But, in 

 scirrhus of the pylorus, vomiting soon folloAvs the reception of 

 food into the stomach, and therefore this organ is reduced to the 

 condition in which it was previously, and the return of hunger is 

 easily explicable. In diseases of the mesenteric glands, there is 

 in fact no obstruction to the course of the chyle. They are 

 found permeable (427), and the continued hunger appears rather 

 a part of the diseased state of the chylopoietic viscera. Besides, 

 many cases of imperfect nutrition, from various causes, occur 

 without any increase of appetite. In continued abstinence, al- 

 though the system is daily more in want, hunger usually ceases 

 in a few days, whether from the stomach falling into a state of 

 relaxation, becoming distended with wind, or other circumstances. 



If hunger arose from fatigue of the stomach, it should be 

 greatest immediately after the laborious action of digestion, 

 and gradually decrease ; but it on the contrary increases. 



Were irritation the cause, hunger should be greatest when the 

 stomach is filled with food. 



On the whole, hunger may perhaps be regarded as a sensation 

 connected with the contracted state of the stomach and the 

 corrugation of its inner coat. 



It occurs when the stomach, being empty, must be contracted, 

 and the inner coat corrugated ; and is increased by cold drink, by 

 cold air applied to the surface, by acids, bitters, and astringents, 

 all which may be presumed to corrugate the inner coat of 

 the organ. It is diminished by heat and every thing which 

 relaxes. Again, it ceases immediately that the stomach is filled 

 and thus all corrugation removed, and the more the contents of 

 the stomuch are of a nature to be absorbed or passed into the 

 duodenum, the sooner it recurs. 



Being, in .this view, a sensation connected with a local state 

 of the stomach, it will be affected not only by whatever affects 



