94 Dr. A. P. W. Philip on the 
of conveying impressions and exciting the muscles. Are they 
capable of their other functions? Can they effect the forma- 
tion of the secreted fluids, and raise the temperature of the 
blood, after the sensorial_power is withdrawn ? 
It is, perhaps, superfluous to observe, that the erosion of 
the stomach by the gastric fluid after death, first observed by 
Mr. Hunter, is not to be regarded as a vital action, but as a 
mere chemical process ; Mr. Hunter, however, it appears from 
what he says in the hundred and eightieth page of his Obser- 
vations on the Animal Economy, suspected that a truly vital 
action, a continuance of the secreting process, goes on in the 
stomach for some time after what is called death. 
It appeared to me, that this opinion might be reduced to the 
test of experiment by dividing, immediately after death, the 
eighth pair of nerves in the neck. I shall use the words death 
and kill in the usual acceptation, not implying the ceasing of 
all the functions. After this explanation, no ambiguity can 
arise from the use of these terms. We are not, it is evident, to 
expect that any great secretion of gastric fluid can take place 
after death ; or, consequently, that any great difference can be 
observed between the food in the stomach of an animal in 
which the eighth pair of nerves has been divided immediately 
after death, and one in which they are left entire; and many 
circumstances which we cannot estimate, particularly there 
being more gastric fluid in the stomach of the one animal 
than the other at the time they are killed, or one having eaten 
more than the other, must influence the result. It will not 
answer the purpose, it is evident, to confine the animals to the 
same quantity of food, because the stomach of that which is 
most hungry contains most gastric fluid. The quantity of old 
food in the stomach also influences the result. The question, 
therefore, can only be determined by making the experiment ona 
large scale, to which there can be no objection, as the exami- 
nation only takes place in the dead animal. 
By such an experiment* it was ascertained that the secre- 
tion of gastric fluid continues for a certain time after death. 
¥* Inquiry, Exper. 61. 
