LETTERS TO BROTHER JOHN. 211 



produce also a deficiency in those juices, by com- 

 mixture with which the chyme is converted into 

 chyle. Here, then, is another cause which tends 

 to diminish the quantity of chyle ; and, conse- 

 quently, blood the nourishment which we ought 

 to derive from our food. 



But there is yet another mischievous result 

 accruing 1 from a congested condition of the stomach 

 and bowels, besides that of deficient and unhealthy 

 gastric juice. In that condition of the health which 

 I am endeavouring to describe, the stomach and 

 bowels actually secrete AIR. It is a thoroughly- 

 established fact, that air, windy flatus, is actually 

 formed from the blood, and poured into the stomach 

 and bowels by those arteries which ought to form 

 only gastric juice. Now this wind not only does 

 no good in the stomach and bowels, but it does a 

 vast deal of harm: for, besides the evil effects 

 which it produces by its pernicious qualities, it vio- 

 lently distends these organs, stretching, and sepa- 

 rating, and thus greatly weakening and destroying, 

 the firmness and compactness of their ultimate 

 tissue. 



To give you a still further and clearer idea of 

 the manner in which the secretions of the body may 

 be altered in their quality, as well as diminished in 



