PHYSIOlOGY OF ORGANIC LIFE. 131 



cause. With as much rationality might we 

 refer to death, the cause of life ; to organic 

 action, the source of organisation ; or assert 

 that the feculent matter in the rectum, is the 

 seat of chylification. It is scarcely necessary 

 for me to expatiate on the folly of these opi- 

 nions. They tend to revive the exploded doc- 

 trine of M'BRiDE, that digestion is a process of 

 fermentation and putrefaction, and that the 

 same means are employed, in the animated 

 system, to bring dead matter into a living state, 

 as are employed to decompose and reduce 

 living matter, to one dead arid common. The 

 gastric juice, like the other fluids, has been ana- 

 lysed also, but instead of manifesting any che- 

 mical properties to which its power can be re- 

 ferred, it has been found to be destitute of 

 them ; it is neither acid nor alkalescent, but 

 perfectly insipid and inoffensive. Is it, I would 

 ask, reasonable to assert that a fluid such as 

 this, which appears to be destitute of all che- 

 mical quality whatever, nevertheless acts by 

 chemical power ? 



The same errors exist respecting the agency 

 of the means, by which a separation of the chy- 

 lous from the feculent parts of the chyme is 

 effected, after it has passed from the stomach 

 into the intestinal canal ; although the first por- 

 tion of the canal is evidently constructed with a 

 view to retard the passage of the chyme through 



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