488 DR KNOX on the Structure of the Stomach 



mature, as it were, to the ancient Peruvians those services ren- 

 dered in a much more efficient manner by the congenerous ani- 

 mal of the Old World, but still a kind of camel, as I may so ex- 

 press myself, a camel of the New World, a miniature of the 

 camel of the desert, as the puma is to the lion, possessing similar 

 qualities ; patient under fatigue, and temperate beyond what has 

 been told, even in exaggeration, of the ancient animal of the 

 Arabian desert. 



This is the knowledge, the previous knowledge, drawn from 

 history and observation, with which the anatomist proceeds to 

 search for, in the structure of the animal, the reasons for its 

 temperance. The first essays were to discover the sac or bag 

 (for the early and even late notions on this matter were extreme- 

 ly coarse) in which the animal was supposed to deposite the 

 water drank in large quantities, and at long intervening periods, 

 as if really laid up in store for future use. Now, fluids pass first 

 into the stomach ; and to this organ, therefore, the anatomist first 

 directs his researches, delighted, no doubt, to find that there 

 should exist in it a structure seemingly explanatory of this theo- 

 ry, seemingly conformable to the habits of the animal, unlike 

 what exists in other animals, and referrible, therefore, in this 

 view, to this cause only. It seems to have been forgotten, in 

 this hurry to explain function from structure, that it was first 

 to be proved that a liquid could remain for several days con- 

 tained within a living organ, adapted apparently for absorption, 

 without being removed or absorbed, agreeably to the laws of 

 mucous membranes. This difficulty, however, was readily over- 

 looked, and yet there are only three experiments recorded, in 

 which it is pretended that any water was found, after the lapse 

 of a few days, in the stomach of the camel : the first by BRUCE, 

 with most questionable authority ; the second by DAUBENTON, 

 who found water in the stomach of the camel ten days after the 

 death of the animal ; the third, too rude I fear to figure as a phi- 



