DIGESTION AND RESORPTION 91 



figures calculated according to the square-root rule 

 (fifth column) we find an excellent agreement. 

 There is an indication that with great quantities 

 of food the digestion proceeds a little slower than 

 is given by the square-root rule. This is a sign 

 of incipient overstrain which London observed with 

 still larger meals given to the dog. How well the 

 formula agrees with the observations of London 

 regarding the quantity digested after three hours 

 is seen from a comparison of the second and third 

 columns of the last table. The differences between 

 the observed and the calculated values all fall 

 within the limits of accidental deviations from the 

 mean value. It must be conceded that the pro- 

 cess of digestion goes on in a much more regular 

 way than might have been expected, i.e. that un- 

 controlled influences — e.g. the psychical state of the 

 dog, which is very important according to the 

 highly interesting studies of Pawlow — exert a 

 much smaller perturbing influence than generally 

 presumed. 



As we have seen above, the digestion proceeds 

 very much slower if the flesh is introduced directly 

 into the stomach than when the dog has chewed it. 

 London gives two series of observations regarding 

 digestion of food without chewing, and for com- 

 parison one with chewing, for all of which the same 

 dog was used. In the first series (i.) the eyes and 

 the nose of the dog were tightly covered, in the 

 second (n.) they were uncovered. No sensible 

 difference, due to the psychical influence of the 



