ANIMALS. O 



and intricacy. This longing eagerness is, no 

 doubt, given for a very obvious purpose ; that 

 of replenishing the body, wasted by fatigue and 

 perspiration. Were not men stimulated by such 

 a pressing monitor, they might be apt to pursue 

 other amusements, with a perseverance beyond 

 their power ; and forget the useful hours of re- 

 freshment, in those more tempting ones of plea- 

 sure. But hunger makes a demand that will not 

 be refused ; and, indeed, the generality of man- 

 kind seldom await the call. 



Hunger has been supposed by some to arise 

 from the rubbing of the coats of the stomach 

 against each other, without having any interven- 

 ing substance' to prevent their 'painful attrition. 

 Others have imagined that its juices, wanting 

 their necessary supply, turn acrid, or, as some 

 say, pungent ; and thus fret its internal coats, so 

 as to produce a train of the most uneasy sensa- 

 tions. Boerhaave, who established his reputation 

 in physic by uniting the conjectures of all those 

 that preceded him, ascribes hunger to the united 

 effects of both these causes ; and asserts, that the 

 pungency of the gastric juices, and the attrition 

 of its coats against each other, cause those pains 

 which nothing but food can remove. These 

 juices continuing still to be separated in the 

 stomach, and every moment becoming more 

 acrid, mix with the blood, and infect the circu- 

 lation : the circulation being thus contaminated, 

 becomes weaker, and more contracted ; and the 

 whole nervous frame sympathizing, an hectic 

 fever, and sometimes madness, is produced ; in 



