DIGESTION AND FOOD. 27 



42. Hunger is the sensation of want of more nutriment 

 in the body. But this is felt, not in the body where nutri- 

 ment is needed, but in the stomach, and there only when that 

 organ is ready to give out sufficient and proper gastric juice 

 to digest the food which is required. There must be a cor- 

 respondence between the general frame and the stomach, to 

 produce this feeling of hunger. The one must be in need of 

 more nutriment, and the other ready and able to digest it. 

 It is not enough that the body is in want. If the stomach 

 cannot render aid in the supply, there is no hunger. In fever, 

 the body wastes away and wants nourishment; but the 

 stomach cannot digest, and consequently asks for no food. 

 When nutriment is wanted, the body speaks to the stomach, 

 and the stomach, if it have power of digestion, speaks to the 

 nervous system. This is hunger. This sensation is felt in 

 the stomach, and there it continues until all the gastric juice 

 which will dissolve the needed quantity of food is poured 

 out and combined with it, and then it ceases for the time. 



43. An industrious man, who imagines the time spent at 

 table to be lost, complains that he has a very great appetite, 

 but a very weak and painful digestion. He says that he sits 

 down to his dinner voraciously hungry, and eats very rapidly, 

 without giving his mouth time to masticate his food. He eats 

 much more than his companions, and yet he rises from the- 

 table hungry, and goes immediately to his work, from which 

 he is absent a shorter time than his fellows, who eat less than 

 he does. His hunger continues about twenty minutes or 

 half an hour after he leaves the table, and then he is in pain. 

 His food oppresses him ; it lies like a weight in the stomach 

 for several hours ; and he is scarcely relieved of the distress 

 before the time for another meal comes round. 



44. The explanation is this : Mr. D. is a man of active 

 habits, and his frame therefore wants nutriment. His stomach 

 can digest and is ready to give out gastric juice sufficient to 

 dissolve as much food as is needed, and he is consequently 

 hungry. To gratify his keen appetite, and .to save time at 

 his meals, he has acquired the unnatural habit of eating 



