PUBLIC HEALTH OF THE STOMACH. 349 



Like babies on the subject, let us begin with the stomach, which 

 is the most interesting thing in all our early considerations. And 

 what are the demands of the stomach and the alimentary tube as 

 regards the public service? Evidently they require that cultivated 

 nature shall be conducted into them, and their own rejections be 

 cleanly drawn off into nature again : that is to say, that the world 

 shall be an alimentary tube leading to them from the one side, and 

 a hidden intestine or rectum of drains passing from them on the 

 other. Health immediately, and existence soon, demand that the 

 stomach shall not be isolated, but that the earth shall be cut into 

 ways that correspond to, and converge into, it. Wherever there is 

 a break in the tube of functions that conducts from the earth to the 

 mouth, a corresponding inanition takes place in the latter; and 

 wherever there is a stoppage in that other tube that should run from 

 the belly to the ground, a constipation is created somewhere in the 

 upper parts. Our towns are in a state of permanent inanition and 

 constipation, owing to the fact that markets, and drainage, are not 

 laid down to, and from, every mouth or inhabitant. The violation 

 of the calls of the frame, which is satisfied with nothing but the 

 conquest of the external world, leads to loss of health, public and 

 therefore private. And here we observe a second time, that public 

 and private health are inseparable, and only exist apart in excep- 

 tions that prove the rule of their union. 



But how much is involved in that single reconstruction of circum- 

 stances of which the alimentary tube is the missionary : how much 

 wise industry in the creation of food, and honesty in delivering it 

 from hand to hand; and on the other part, how complete a belief in 

 the interest of the commonwealth in cleanness and order. This 

 lowest department of sanitary duties, begins to demand virtues and 

 faculties which are not yet real ; in fact, the universal kindness of a 

 higher polity than exists on earth. But what then ? shall we give 

 up effort; or shall we not rather be grateful, that past our powers to 

 attain, the wants of the body are prophetic? 



There is no organ, however, which stops with the material ques- 

 tion, but all flesh has psychical inhabitants, who make their own 

 fearful demands. The public peace, prosperity and ease constitute 

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