290 Food. 



the same result* would follow, that is, in other words, we should 

 be able to manufacture a pappy mass, resembling chyme in all parti- 

 culars and qualities. 



Now, this was found impossible to be done, and therefore this no^ 

 tion, like all others purely hypothetical, fell to the ground, t vqq» « 



After the mechanial doctrines, which had been maintained, in 

 order to account for the phenomena of digestion, were found to 

 be untenable. Philosophers, amongst whom wa* Doctor Mac- 

 bride, and several others of our own country, had recourse to 

 fermentation, to explain this astonishing process, and to get rid 

 of the difficulties, with which the subject seemed to be beset. But, 

 at that time, (as Doctor Thomson, has very properly remarked) the 

 nature of the process called fermentation, was almost unknown ; no 

 attempt having been made to explain the cause of it, or the changes 

 %vhich take place during its continuance. 



If this notion, then, of food being converted into chyme, in 

 consequence of undergoing fermentation in the stomach, meant any 

 thing, it must necessarily imply, either, that the putrefactive, the 

 vinous, or the acetous fermentation, was carried on in this organ of 

 living animals, and not only so, but that the product of these diffe- 

 rent processes was precisely of the same kind. But, it is certain, 

 that, except in cases where the stomach is diseased, no wine or vine- 

 gar is ever formed in it, and as to putrefaction going on in it, this 

 is so far from ever being the case in healthy stomachs, that it is 

 a well known indisputable fact, if putrid meat be swallowed, it is 

 rendered perfectly sweet, in consequence of the action of the juices 

 of the stomach upon it. 



