ALIMENTARY PHYSIOLOGY 85 
to be sick: and no sooner had I drunk the warm water, 
than I vomited, and that very easily. Soon after I was 
sick again with great violence, so that the food I brought 
up (as they told me) came out of my mouth and nose: 
but I knew not what I was doing. When I came to 
myself, I examined the stuff I had cast up: and I found 
it was not only the food I’d taken the evening before, but 
even what I’d had the previous mid-day. 
When I let my thoughts run regarding this, I imagine 
that the cause of my attack was as follows: The 
membranes, whereof the coats of the guts are composed, 
are so made that they have divers motions, in order to 
push the chyle, that’s in them, onwards towards the 
outfall‘: to bring which about, a continual increase of 
contraction” of the guts is needful, as long as there 
remaineth any chyle in ‘em: and if there be no chyle in 
the guts, they stay at rest. And in promoting this 
pushing-on of the chyle, the bile, which is poured into 
the gut, helps not a little: for the bile congeals in the gut 
into sharp particles. 
During this attack I was very costive, just as I had 
been for a good month previous, notwithstanding I was 
taking only bland food: and a full three days passed ere 
the chyle brought me to stool.° 
I’m therefore sure there was no proper motion in my 
guts, and that the gut lying next the stomach was stuffed 
with food, or chyle; wherefore the stomach was also stopt 
with food: for if the guts don’t lie still, the stomach 
strives to unburden itself of the food that’s entered it, by 
squeezing itself together: so that I’m sure the stomach, 
_ 
" afgang orig. [=evacuatio intestinorum]. The Latin translator evaded 
the word, merely saying that the chyle is pushed ‘‘deorswm’’. Chyle = chyme: 
see note 5 on p. 284 infra. 
* Meaning peristalsis. 
* This paragraph is so paraphrased in the Latin version that its import 
is rather obscure. The Dutch is particularly frank. 
