540 DIGESTION. 



hepato-gastricum; the greater or g astro-colic; and the appendices or 

 appendiculse epiploicse; which last have already been referred to, and 

 may be regarded as so many small epiploons. 



The abdomen is entirely filled by the contained viscera. There are 

 several apertures in it ; three, above, in the diaphragm, for the passage 

 of the oesophagus, vena cava inferior, and aorta ; one anteriorly in the 

 course of the linea alba, which is closed after birth, the umbilicus; 

 and two anteriorly and inferiorly ; the one the abdominal, inguinal; 

 or supra-pubian ring which gives passage to the vessels, nerves, &c., 

 of the testicle ; and the other the crural arch through which the 

 vessels and nerves pass to the lower extremity. Lastly, two others 

 exist in the inferior paries, for the passage of the obturator vessels and 

 nerves, and sciatic vessels and nerves, respectively. 



Such is a brief view of the various organs concerned in digestion. 

 To this might have been added the general anatomy of the liver and 

 pancreas, each of which furnishes a fluid, that is a material agent in 

 the digestive process, and of the spleen, which has been looked upon 

 by many as inservient, in some manner, to the same function. As, how- 

 ever, the physiology of these organs will be considered in another place, 

 we defer their anatomy for the present. 



2. FOOD OF MAN. 



The articles, inservient to the nourishment of man, have usually been 

 considered to belong entirely to the animal and vegetable kingdoms ; 

 but there seems to be no sufficient reason for excluding those articles of 

 the mineral kingdom that are necessary for the due constitution of the 

 different parts of the body. Generally, the term food or aliment is 

 applied to substances, which, when received into the digestive organs, 

 are capable of being converted into chyle ; but, from this class again, 

 the products of the mineral kingdom chloride of sodium, phosphorus, 

 sulphur, and lime, either in combination or separately cannot, with 

 entire propriety , be excluded. There are numerous tribes who feed at 

 particular seasons more especially on mineral substances. Kessler 

 affirms, that the quarriers on the Kyffhauser, in northern Thuringia, 

 spread a Steinbutter "rock butter," on bread, which they eat with 

 appetite; and Humboldt relates, among many other instances, that of 

 the Ottomacs, who, during the periodical rise of the Orinoco and Meta, 

 when the taking of fish ceases a period of two or three months' dura- 

 tion swallow great quantities of earth. They found piles of clayballs 

 in pyramidal heaps in the huts, and Humboldt was informed, that an 

 Ottomac would eat from three-quarters of a pound to a pound and a 

 quarter in a day. Some of this earth was analyzed by M. Vauquelin, 

 and found to contain no organic matter. It would appear, that 

 the practice of eating earth exists in many parts of the torrid zone, 

 among indolent nations, who inhabit the finest and most fertile regions 

 of the globe. But it is not confined to them; for the same writer 

 affirms, that in the north, by information communicated by Berzelius 

 and Retzius, hundreds of cartloads of earth containing infusoria are 

 annually consumed by the country people in the most remote parts of 



