REGURGITATION OF FOOD, AND ERUCTATION. 255 



pyloric division, they are intermittent and more expulsive. The effect of the contractions 

 of the stomach upon the food contained in its cavity is to subject it to a tolerably uniform 

 pressure, with a certain amount of trituration and agitation, in the cardiac portion, the 

 general tendency of the movement being toward the pylorus along the greater curvature, 

 and back from the pylorus toward the great pouch along the lesser curvature. At the 

 constricted part, which separates the cardiac from the pyloric portion, there is an ob- 

 struction to the passage of the food until it has been sufficiently acted upon by the secre- 

 tions in the cardiac division to have become reduced to a pultaceous consistence. The ali- 

 mentary mass then passes into the pyloric division, and, by a more powerful contraction 

 than occurs in other parts of the stomach, it is passed into the small intestine. This 

 completes the distinction between the two portions of the stomach, the cardiac division 

 only, as we have already seen, possessing a mucous membrane capable of secreting the 

 true solvent gastric juice. 



The revolutions of the alimentary mass, thus accomplished, take place slowly, by gen- 

 tle and persistent contractions of the muscular coat ; the food occupying from one to 

 three minutes in its passage entirely around the stomach. Every time that a revolution 

 is accomplished, the contents of the stomach are somewhat diminished in quantity ; 

 probably, in a slight degree, from absorption of digested mater by the stomach itself, but 

 chiefly by the gradual passage of the softened and disintegrated mass into the small intes- 

 tine. This process continues until the stomach is emptied, occupying a period of from 

 two to four hours ; after which, the movements of the stomach cease until food is again 

 introduced. 



Regurgitation of Food, and Eructation. 



Regurgitation of part of the contents of the stomach, in the human subject, although 

 of frequent occurrence, particularly in early life, is not strictly a physiological act ; and 

 this is always due either to overloading of the stomach or to some pathological condition. 

 Hut in some of the inferior animals this is habitual ; a certain class, called ruminants, 

 regularly passing the food, after the first deglutition, in small quantities from the paunch 

 into the mouth, where it undergoes a second mastication and is only then permitted to 

 pass to the secreting stomach and the rest of the alimentary canal. Animals of this 

 class, examples of which are the ox, sheep, goat, camel, and the deer tribe, are invari- 

 ably herbivorous and take into the stomach a large bulk of matter from which is elabo- 

 rated a comparatively small quantity of nutriment. During the period when they are 

 nourished by milk, rumination does not take place. 



Considerable interest is attached to the function of rumination in the inferior ani- 

 mals, in connection with human physiology, from the fact that an analogous process has 

 sometimes been observed in the human subject ; though this is rare and is generally con- 

 nected with a pathological condition. Such cases have been often quoted, and, in the 

 earlier works on physiology, were frequently exaggerated ; but, a few instances, well au- 

 thenticated, are on record in which rumination had become habitual. A very remark' 

 able case of this kind is reported by Home. The subject was an idiot-boy, aged nineteen 

 years, who had an appetite so ravenous that it became necessary to restrict the quantity 

 of food. At dinner he ordinarily ate about a pound and a half of meat and vegetables, 

 swallowing the whole in two minutes. He began to chew the cud at the end of a quar- 

 ter of an hour. The muscles of the throat could be seen to contract when the bolus was 

 passed back to the mouth. He chewed the food by two or three movements of the jaws 

 and then swallowed it again. This was repeated at intervals for half an hour, during 

 which time he was always more quiet than usual. The intellect was so feeble that it was 

 impossible to ascertain whether the rumination were voluntary or involuntary. One of 

 the cases of rumination most frequently referred to is that of M. Cambay, who studied 

 the phenomena in his own person and made it the subject of an inaugural thesis ; and 

 another is the case of the brother of M. P. Berard. In these instances, as far as could 



