214 ELEMENTS OF PHYSIOLOGY 



absorption of the food takes place in the small intestine, 

 and it is there likewise that most of the digestion takes 

 place ; for, upon leaving the stomach, the greater part of 

 the proteids, sugars, and starches, and all the fats and oils, 

 remain to be acted upon. 



381. After the food has been reduced to chyme, the 

 pyloric orifice opens every minute or two, permitting a little 

 of the chyme to escape into the intestine. But if some 

 hard object, as a button, or a lump of raw starch from 

 an unripe apple insufficiently masticated, enters the 

 stomach, the pylorus, after a while, will become fatigued 

 and will relax and allow it to pass without 

 becoming semi-fluid (Fig. 170). 



382. It is a common notion that digestion 

 is carried on chiefly in the stomach. Some 

 physiologists give tables stating that pork 

 requires five hours for digestion, fried beef 

 four hours, roasted beef three hours, apples 

 FIG. 170. Pylorus, one hour, etc. ; what is meant is that it 

 /, pyloric sphincter, requires that length of time for these 



d, stomach. 



foods to leave the stomach, the digestion 

 being 1 far from complete. The tendency of investigation 

 in the last few years is to show that the stomach is a kind 

 of storeroom or antechamber which enables us to eat food 

 in a shorter time, and in which it is stored, being softened 

 and kept free from germs in the meanwhile, that it may be 

 delivered gradually to the intestine. There were four per- 

 sons in the world in the year 1900 without stomachs (this 

 organ having been removed by surgeons on account of 

 cancerous or other incurable conditions), and the small 

 intestine joined to the esophagus. These persons had to 

 eat very slowly, taking their food in a semi-fluid condition. 

 383. Retrospect. Of the thirty or more feet of the ali- 

 mentary canal, the food, upon leaving the stomach, has 

 traversed about two feet. Of the fourteen hours required 



