SYSTEMATIC SYNTHESIS OF ORGANS INTO APP. 393 



SECTION VIII. 

 Digestion : Digestory Apparatus. 



1291. THE OBJECT AND NATURE OF DIGESTION SHOW 

 that its organs must act, and of course be arranged, con- 

 secutively, since their collective use or function is to dis- 

 solve the food into its various elements, and to transform 

 some of its varieties and pass them into the Blood ; three 

 steps of one process, the last having several branches. 



1292. TO FORM A DIGESTORY APPARATUS, nothing 



therefore remains to be done but to associate the organs 

 with common nervous centres, related also to all parts 

 of the body, and of course to the mind. 



1293. ANTECEDENT, WHOLESOME COOKING, is for the 

 purpose of facilitating digestion by grinding the food ; 

 dissolving it, or preparing it to readily receive the di- 

 gestory fluids; pleasing the palate, that excites the 

 more profuse flow of those fluids ; and changing starch 

 into sugar. 



1 294. Remark. HEAT AND MOISTURE COMBINED are the chief agents 

 in facilitating solution. At a high temperature, after considerable time, 

 they change the tough, sinewy tissue of meat, into gelatine, and par- 

 tially or wholly dissolve it, freeing the elements it binds together. At 

 a higher temperature, in a closed vessel (Papin's digestor), they will dis- 

 solve bones into wholesome food. Heat, by swelling the kernels of 

 starch, cracks them, and, continuously applied, changes part of it into 

 dextrine, a sweetish substance, on the way to become sugar. Heat 

 affects some articles prejudicially, eggs, cabbage, etc., since it does 

 not facilitate, but retards their solution, and cannot produce favorable 

 changes in them, as there are none to be made, but does produce un- 

 favorable changes. SCORES OP WHOLESOME DISHES, the fundamental ele- 

 ments of which are alike, may, by various combinations, and the addition 

 of delicious flavors, be provided to please the palate, without in the least 

 diminishing, but rather increasing, their digestibility and valuable charac- 

 teristics. In this art of combining food and flavors, and applying heat, 

 the whole of good cookery consists. By it the strictest economy and the 

 " best living " are compatible ; indeed, they are only attainable together. 

 It is a valuable, a manly art. Man only cooks. Mind only could in- 



1291. What do ? 1292. What is necessary r- ? 1293. What the purpose of ? 

 1294. Effect of ? What said of ? 



