46 PHYSIOLOGY AND HEALTH. 



Sailors, in times of peril and shipwreck, may go from morn- 

 ing till night without thinking of dinner. The anxious 

 mother, watching over a sick child, often needs to be re- 

 minded by others of the time and necessity of eating. 



88. A merchant, whose business during the whole day 

 is in the city, and whose employment often absorbs his 

 whole attention, sometimes returns at night to his home in 

 the country with a great appetite ; for he has been so much 

 occupied that he has forgotten his dinner. And when thus 

 engaged, it is only at night, when business hours are passed, 

 and his occupation has ceased, that he gives any heed to the 

 wants of his system, or discovers that he is hungry ; and 

 then, from his previous exhaustion and want of supply, his 

 hunger returns with double force. 



89 In these and in similar cases, one may not feel appe- 

 tite sufficient to warn him of the hours of eating, although, 

 at the same time, his system is in want of nutriment, and 

 there is real cause of hunger without the sensation. For 

 the body is suffering from the waste of its particles and from 

 the privation of food ; the stomach is empty, and it has sent 

 the warning of this emptiness to the brain; but if this organ 

 gives ho attention to it, no sensation is felt, nor hunger per- 

 ceived. This happens for the same reason that, when we are 

 sometimes absorbed in thought, we do not hear the church 

 clock strike, although very near us, or even the house clock 

 in the same room with us. In this case, the impulse was 

 given ,to the air, and communicated to the tympanum of the 

 ear, but the brain was directing its attention elsewhere, 

 and perceived no sound. 



