Food. 29>l 



So that those savages who live, in great measure, upon the putrid 

 flesh of whales or seals, and drink the stinking oil of these animals, 

 are not so pitiable^ in this point of view, as a partial and limited 

 survey of their habits of life, and modes of existence, would seem 

 to justify us in supposing them to be. And, although we have no4;, 

 perhaps, advanced much farther in an intimate knowledge of wha* 

 fermentation really is, and are yet, indeed, unable to defme the pre- 

 cise nwxde in which! it is. effected, yet, we certainly have obtained 

 more definite notiohs of its effects ; and are better accquainted with 

 the nature of its products, than those philosophers who endeavoured 

 to explain the phenomena of digestion, on the principle of its being 

 a fermentative process. Again, it follows (a fortiori) if tlve di- 

 gestive process depended upon fermentation, that the stomach can 

 be no further concerned in the affair, than by supplying the necessary 

 heat and moisture, and that we should be able to produce chyme 

 from the different articles of food, by subjecting them, out of th<e 

 bod^, to the same degree of temperature and quantity of moisture, 

 that they meet with in the stomach of living animals. But this catt 

 no more be effected by fermentation, than by mechanical trituration. 

 We have however, still farther and more direct proof, that digestion is 

 not a fermentative process, when we recollect the facts, which were 

 noticed many years ago by several philosophers, who found on opening 

 the stomachs of voracious fish, which had swallowed prey too large to 

 be contained in tiie stomachy that, that part only which this organ con- 

 tained, was converted into chyme; whilst that which remained int the 

 gullet, though exposed to the same temperature, appeared to have un- 

 dergone little or no alteration. And these facts, which apply also to 

 the case of many amphibious animals, have again and again been- 

 noticed by physiologists, amply confirming the notion, that not only the 



