560 DIGESTION. 



which produces a sensible motion of this organ, nor that permanent 

 general contraction, which would serve to diminish its cavity, but that 

 kind of permanent contraction, which takes place in certain fibres alone, 

 and perhaps through a part of their length only, and by which these 

 fibres are, as it were, drawn away from the others, or, in other words, 

 a minor degree of cramp." Others, again, have accounted for the 

 sensation by the action of the gastric juice, which is supposed to Ijave a 

 tendency to irritate the internal membrane. In proof of this, they refer 

 to a case, mentioned by Mr. Hunter, in which the mucous membrane, 

 in a man who died of fasting, was found corroded. The gastric juice 

 is, however, incapable of eroding living animal matter; and the nume- 

 rous cases, which have occurred since that of Hunter, have shown, that 

 the corrosion and perforation, which we meet with on dissection, are to 

 be referred to an action after death, and must, consequently, be totally 

 unconnected with the sensation felt during life. We have, indeed, no 

 reason for believing that the gastric juice can ever attain a state of 

 acridity, and affect physically the surface by which it is secreted. It 

 has been remarked, that it is a law of the animal economy, that no 

 secretion acts upon the part over which it is destined to pass, provided 

 such part be in a healthy condition. Yet Sommering 1 ascribes the 

 pain from long-continued fasting to the action of the gastric juice; and 

 Dr. Wilson Philip 2 is manifestly induced to believe that its influence on 

 the stomach is, in some mode or other, productive of the sensation : his 

 remarks, however, tend simply to show, what we have so many oppor- 

 tunities for observing, that the sensation can be postponed by exciting 

 vomiting, or inducing, for the time, a morbid condition of the stomach. 

 The unanswerable objection, however, to all these views is the fact 

 repeatedly proved by Dr. Beaumont, 3 and which the author had an 

 opportunity of observing that, in the fasting state there is little or no 

 gastric juice in the cavity of the stomach. Dr. Beaumont thinks, that 

 the sensation of hunger is produced by distension of the vessels, that 

 secrete the solvent ; but such distension, if it exist which is by no 

 means proved must itself be consecutive on the nervous condition that 

 engenders the sensation : the efficient cause of such condition has still 

 to be explained. Bichat, again, attributed it to the lassitude or fatigue 

 of the stomach, occasioned by the contraction of its muscular coat 

 when continued beyond a certain time. In answer to this, it may be 

 remarked, that if any thing impedes the nutrition of the body, hunger 

 continues, although the stomach may be distended. This happens in 

 cases of scirrhous pylorus, where the nutritive mass cannot pass into 

 the small intestine, to be subjected to the action of the chyliferous 

 vessels, and the losses of the body cannot, therefore, be repaired ; 

 facts which would seem to show, that hunger is a sensation excited in 

 the stomach by sympathy with the wants of the constitution ; and that 

 it is immediately produced by some inappreciable alteration in the 

 condition of the nerves of the organ. It appears, from the experiments 



1 De Corp. Human. Fabric, torn, vi., Traject. ad Mosnum, 1794-1801. 

 3 Experimental Inquiry into the Laws of the Vital Functions, 2d edit., Lond., 1818. 

 3 Experiments and Observations on the Gastric Juice, and the Physiology of Digestion, p. 

 57, Plattsburg, 1833. 



