LETTERS TO BROTHER JOHN. 135 



shews you the reason why such matters as undergo 

 putrefaction with the greatest rapidity, as some 

 fish, and fresh pork, do not well agree with weak 

 stomachs ; for that which putrefies most rapidly in 

 the pantry will do so in the stomach. 



While, therefore, the indigestible matters are 

 slowly submitting to the action of the gastric juice, 

 the good and wholesome portion of the food is 

 actually putrefying, and can, therefore, afford no 

 more nutriment than if you had dined on putrid 

 carrion. During the process of fermentation and 

 putrefaction, moreover, as all the world knows, a 

 number of fetid gases are given out : these poi- 

 sonous gases distend the stomach, weaken its 

 energies, oppress its sensibility, enfeeble its con- 

 tractility, diminish the secretion of gastric juice, 

 and, in a word, disturb, interrupt, and wholly over- 

 turn the whole process of assimilation in the 

 stomach ; and there is tumbled into the bowels 

 instead of a bland, smooth, homogeneous, healthy 

 chyme a filthy, fermenting, yeasty mess, smoking 

 with offensive gases, and consisting of little else 

 than sour vegetables and putrid meat: for the 

 sensibility of the pyloric valve of which I am 

 to speak directly is overcome by the oppressive 

 influence and expansive nature of the gases which 



