138 THE VITAL FUNCTIONS. 



that this coagulating power belongs to the stomach of every 

 animal which he examined for that purpose, from the most 

 perfect down to reptiles;* and Sir E. Home has prosecuted 

 the inquiry with the same result, and ascertained that this 

 property is possessed by the secretion from the gastric 

 glands, which communicates it to the adjacent membranes.! 



The gastric juice has also the remarkable property of cor- 

 recting putrefaction. This is particularly exemplified in 

 animals that feed on carrion, to whom this property is of 

 great importance, as it enables them to derive wholesome 

 nourishment from materials which would otherwise taint 

 the whole system with their poison, and soon prove de- 

 structive to life. 



It would appear that the fifst changes which constitute 

 digestion take place principally at the cardiac end of the 

 stomach, and that the mass of food is gradually transferred 

 towards the pylorus, the process of digestion still continuing 

 as it advances. In the Rabbit it has been ascertained that 

 food newly taken into the stomach is always kept distinct 

 from that which was before contained in it, and which has 

 begun to undergo a change: for this purpose the new food 

 is introduced into the centre of the mass already in the sto- 

 mach; so that it may come in due time to be applied to the 

 coats of that organ, and be in its turn digested, after the 

 same change has been completed in the latter.J 



As the flesh of animals has to undergo a less considera- 

 ble change than vegetable materials, so we find the stomachs 

 of all the purely carnivorous tribes consisting only of a mem- 

 branous bag, which is the simplest form assumed by this or- 



large proportion of soups, on which the prisoners had subsisted for the pre- 

 ceding eight months. A very full and perspicuous account of that disease 

 has been drawn up, with great ability, by my friend Dr. P. M. Latham, and 

 published under the title of "An account of the disease lately prevalent in 

 the General Penitentiary." London, 1825. 



* Observations on the Animal Economy, p. 172. 

 f Phil. Trans, for 1813, p. 96. 



* See Dr. Philip's Experimental Inquiry into the Laws of the Vital Func- 

 tions, 3d edition, p. 122. 



