340 CRITICAL NOTICES OP NEW PUBLICATIONS. 



that, the sole object of nutrition being to supply waste and to pro- 

 mote growth, nature so provided that, within certain limits, it is 

 always most vigorous when growth or waste advances with the 

 greatest rapidity. In vegetables, this relation is distinctly observ- 

 able ; and it is no less strikingly apparent in animals. The very 

 possession of a stomach, with its exclusive office, necessarily implies 

 the co-existence of some watchful monitor, such as appetite, to enforce 

 attention to the wants of the system, with an urgency not easy to be 

 resisted. For example, if this were not the case in man, if he had 

 no motive more imperative than reason to oblige him to take food he 

 would be constantly liable, from indolence and thoughtlessness, or 

 the pressure of other occupations, to incur the penalty of starvation, 

 without being previously aware of his danger. But the Creator, 

 with that beneficence which distinguishes all His works, has not 

 only provided an effectual safeguard in the sensations of hunger and 

 thirst, but, moreover attached to their regulated indulgence a degree 

 of pleasure which never fails to insure attention to their demands. 



Dr. Combe, begins the following observations at his eighteenth 

 page. If, he remarks, the body be very actively exercised, and a 

 good deal of waste be effected by perspiration and exhalation from 

 the lungs, the appetite becomes keener and more urgent for imme- 

 diate gratification; and, if it is indulged, we eat with a relish 

 unknown on other occcasions, and we afterwards experience a sensa- 

 tion of internal comfort pervading the frame, as if every individual 

 part of the body were imbued with a feeling of contentment and 

 satisfaction, the very opposite of the restless discomfort and depres- 

 sion which come upon us and extend over the system, when appetite 

 is disappointed. There is, in short, an obvious and active sympathy 

 between the condition and bearing of the stomach and those of every 

 part of the animal frame, and by virtue of this sympathy, hunger 

 is felt very keenly when the general system stands in urgent need 

 of repair, and it is felt very moderately when little waste has been 

 suffered. The effects of exercise shew this connexion very clearly. 

 If we merely saunter out for a given time every day, without being 

 actively enough engaged to quicken the circulation and induce 

 increased exhalation from the lungs, we come in with scarcely any 

 change of feeling or condition : whereas, if we exert ourselves suffici- 

 ently to give a general impetus to the circulation, and bring out 

 moderate perspiration, but without inducing fatigue, we feel a light- 

 ness and energy of a very pleasurable description, and generally 

 accompanied by a strong desire for food. Hence the keen relish 

 with which the fox-hunter sits down to dinner after a successful 

 chace. This intimate communion between the state of the system 

 and that of the stomach, is a beautiful provision of nature, and is 

 one of the causes of the ready sympathy which has often been 

 remarked as existing between the stomach and all the other organs — 

 in other words, of the readiness with which they Accompany it in 

 its departure from health, and the corresponding aptitude of their 

 disorders to produce derangement of the digestive function. 



