OP ORGANIZED BEINGS. 405 



In the most perfect animals and in man, food after it 

 is masticated or chewed, and mixed with saliva, which is 

 secreted by glands situated around the mouth, passes 

 into the stomach by means of a small tube, called the 

 aesophcgus. After it has arrived in the stomach, it is 

 mixed with and acted upon by the gastric juice. 



The gastric juice is a fluid which is secreted by the 

 small vessels of the stomach. It has the property of 

 preventing in a remarkable degree the process of putre- 

 faction and it not only prevents, but all substances 

 hovvever putrid they may be when taken into the sto- 

 mach, are in a short time restored to a state of perfect 

 sweetness. Meat is usually eaten when sweet, but fash- 

 ion and the luxurious desire of having something new, 

 or different from others, has been temptation enough for 

 some even in civilized life to keep their venison as long 

 as they could endure the smell. The inhabitants of some 

 savage countries value their meat in proportion as it ap- 

 proaches putrefaction. The gastric juice possesses like- 

 wise wonderful solvent powers. It is more powerful in 

 this reepect however in some animals than in others. 

 ' The toughest meat and the hardest bones are digested 

 in the stomach of a buzzard. The gastric juice of a dog 

 will dissolve ivory. Not many years since the handles 

 of several knives wore found half digested in the stomach 

 of a man who died in London in consequence of his 

 hardihood in swallowing them.'* After the food has 

 been reduced to a pulpy state in the stomach, it passes 

 from it into the duodenum, or what may properly be call- 

 ed the second stomach, there to undergo other important 

 changes. It is here mixed with bile, which is secreted 

 by the liver, and with the pancreatic juice, which very 

 nearly resembles saliva in its looks and properties, and 

 is converted into a substance called chyle. The nutri- 

 tious part of this chyle, or such as is fit to be converted 

 into blood for the nourishment of the various parts of the 

 body, is taken up by a set of small vessels, called lac- 

 teals, (from the color of the fluid which they convey be- 

 ing that of milk.) These small vessels empty their 



* Good's Study of Mediaroe. 

 VOL. I. NO. XVII. 36* 



