PHILOSOPHY OF ZOOLOGV. 



fish too large for the stomach, so that a part remains in the 

 gullet. That which is retained in the gullet continues unalter- 

 ed ; but the portion which has entered the stomach is very 

 speedily reduced. Again, the gastric juice is well known 

 to possess the power of coagulating milk, and of redissolv- 

 ing the coagulum. An antiseptic power was likewise as- 

 cribed to the gastric juice by SPALLANZANI. He states, that 

 pieces of 'meat may be preserved a long time in this fluid, with- 

 out undergoing putrefaction ; and that putrid meat becomes 

 sweet, after remaining a short time in the stomach of a dog. 

 The existence of this antiseptic power has been recently 

 called in question by M. MONTEGRE *, who found that 

 the liquid, which he considers as gastric juice, is nearly simi- 

 lar to saliva, and putrefies as readily as that secretion, when 

 kept in phials at the temperature of the human body. But 

 it appears probable, that he operated on saliva only, or on 

 saliva mixed with the mucous secretions of the gullet and 

 stomach, as he obtained the subject of his experiments from 

 his own stomach, after fasting, by means of vomiting ; since 

 it is not yet demonstrated, nor even rendered probable, that 

 in the living system the gastric juice is secreted, unless 

 when the stomach is distended with food. 



In some cases, as among the ruminating quadrupeds, the 

 stomach consists of several divisions. Into the first of these 

 the food is conveyed as into a storehouse, to be afterwards 

 thrown up in small quantities into the mouth, to be remas- 

 ticated and transmitted to the true digesting stomach, in 

 which only the gastric juice is to be found. The two 

 first stomachs of the ox may be regarded as appendages 

 of the gullet, and more connected with mastication and de- 

 glutition, than digestion. In other animals > as birds, the 

 food is exposed in the stomach to a process of trituration 



Report of the French Institute for 1812. 



