132 DISEASES CLASS I. o. 1. I. 



of heat, which always accompanies increased secretion. 2. 'They 

 may be distinguished from those fluids, which are the consequence 

 of deficient absorption, by their not possessing the saline acrimony, 

 which those fluids possess; which inflames the skin or other mem- 

 branes on which they fall; and which have a saline taste to the 

 tongue. 3. They may be distinguished from those fluids, which 

 are the consequence both of increased secretion and absorption, as 

 these are attended with increase of warmth, and are inspissated 

 by the abstraction of their aqueous parts. 4. Where chyle, or 

 milk, is found in the feces or urine, or when other fluids, as mat- 

 ter, are translated from one part of the system to another, they 

 have been the product of retrograde action of lymphatic or other 

 canals. As explained in Sect, XXIX. 8* 



SPECIES. 



1. Ruminatio. In the rumination of horned cattle the retro- 

 grade motions of the oesophagus are visible to the eye, as they 

 bring up the softened grass from their first stomach. The vege- 

 table aliment in the first stomach of cattle, which have filled 

 themselves too full of young clover, is liable to run into fermenta- 

 tion, and distend the stomach, so as to preclude its exit, and 

 frequently to destroy the animal. To discharge this air the 

 farmers frequently make an opening into the stomach of the 

 animal with success. I was informed, I believe by the late Dr. 

 Whytt of Edinburgh, that of twenty cows in this situation two 

 had died, and that he directed a pint of gin or whiskey, mixed 

 with an equal quantity of water, to be given to the other eigh- 

 teen; all of which eructed immense quantities of air, and re- 

 covered. 



There are histories of ruminating men, and who have taken 

 pleasure in the act of chewing their food a second time. Philos. 

 Transact. 



2. Ructus. Eructation. An inverted motion of the stomach 

 excluding through its upper valve an elastic vapour, generated 

 by the fermentation of the aliment; which proceeds so hastily, 

 that the digestive power does not subdue it. This is sometimes 

 acquired by habit, so that some people can eruct when they please, 

 and as long as they please; and there is gas enough generated 

 to supply them for this purpose; for by Dr. Hale's experiments, 

 an apple, and many other kinds of aliment, give up above six 

 hundred times their ow r n bulk of an elastic gas in fermentation. 

 When people voluntarily eject the fixable air from their sto- 

 mach, the fermentation of the aliment proceeds the faster; for 

 stopping the vessels, which contain new wines, retards their fer- 



