64 THE EARLIER DISCOVERIES ON THE DIGESTIVE PROCESS. [BOOK II. 



SECT. 2. SOME HISTORICAL PRELIMINARIES. ON THE NATURE OF 

 GASTRIC DIGESTION, AND THE CHARACTER AND PROPERTIES 

 OF THE GASTRIC JUICE. 



The views of From an early period, full importance has been 

 the Ancients. attached to the stomach as the chief organ engaged in 

 the process of digestion. Hippocrates likened this process to one of 

 coction, Treats, the changes in the aliments being brought about 

 mainly by the action of heat ; an opinion which was afterwards 

 advanced by Asclepiades, and by others who lived nearer to our own 

 times. Some however assimilated the process to putrefaction ; others 

 explained it as entirely mechanical, foreshadowing the views which 

 afterwards received fuller development at the hands of the disciples 

 of the chemical and mathematical schools of physiology and medi- 

 cine. 



We may, following M. Milne Edwards 1 , quote the following passage 

 from Celsus as giving a summary of the views of writers antecedent 

 to Galen. 



"Ex quibus, quia maximo pertinere ad rem concoctio videtur, huic 

 potissmmm insistunt; et duce alii Erasistrato, teri cibum in ventre 

 contendunt ; alii Plistonico Praxagorae discipulo, putrescere ; alii credunt 

 Hippocrati, per calorem cibos concoqui ; acceduntque Asclepiadis aemuli, 

 qui, omnia ista vana et supervacua esse, proponunt : nihil enini concoqui, 

 sed crudam materiain, sicut assumpta est, in corpus omne diduci 2 ." 



It is probable that in this passage Celsus attributes to Asclepiades 

 views which he did not hold, and that the views of the fashionable 

 physician of Rome were similar to and possibly suggested those 

 adopted by Cicero, with whom he was on terms of intimacy, and 

 who expresses himself concerning the nature and ends of the digestive 

 process in the following most luminous manner. 



"In alvo multa sunt mirabilia effecta; est autem multiplex et 



tortuosa arcetque et continet, sive illud aridum et sive umiduni, quod 

 recipit, ut id mutari et concoqui possit; eaque turn astringitur, turn 

 relaxatur atque omne, quod accipit, cogit et confundit, ut facile et calore, 

 quern multum habet, et terendo cibo, et praeterea spiritu, omnia cocta atque 

 confecta in reliquum corpus dividantur 3 ." 



The author appends the following literal translation of this 

 interesting passage : 



"In the alimentary canal many wonderful acts are effected; for 



it presents many folds and is tortuous, and encloses and retains that 

 which it receives, be it dry or moist, in order that it may transform and 



1 Milne Edwards, Lemons sur la Physiologic, Vol. v. p. 252. 



2 A. Corn. Celsi, Medicinae, Libri octo, Lib. i. 



3 Cicero, De Natura Deorum, Lib. n. Cap. LIV. 136 (page 52 of Mayor's Edition). 



