Medicine. 24 1 



liave crushed them to pieces; yet not one was ever 

 broken, nor could he ever perceive the smallest de- 

 pression or fissure. Of the active solvent pov^ers 

 of this gastric fluid he gives many remarkable 

 proofs. In a dog it not only dissolved bones, but 

 was found to corrode the enamel of two denies in- 

 cisores taken from the jaw of a sheep. And, from 

 some experiments on himself, he observed it to be 

 sufficiently powerful to digest not only muscular 

 fibres and membranes, but tendon, cartilage, and 

 even bone itself, when not of the hardest kind. 



The conclusions arising from these experiments 

 of the Professor of Pavia were, about the same time, 

 confirmed and illustrated by others equally inge- 

 nious and interesting, undertaken by Dr. Edward 

 Stevens.'^ He prevailed on a person to swallow 

 little hollow spheres of silver, filled with food of 

 different kinds ; the sides of the spheres being per- 

 forated in various places, the gastric juice had 

 access to^ and, of course, could act upon their con- 

 tents; and when voided, the food within thenx 

 was found to be dissolved, either partially or en- 

 tirely, according to the nature of it, and the tima 

 allowed for its remaining in the stomach. 



The celebrated Mr. John Hunter is to be 

 always enumerated among those who have im- 

 proved our knowledge on the subject of digestion. 

 In addition to many other improvements, he en- 

 deavoured to solve the question, how the stomach 

 itself can remain unhurt, while it encloses so pene- 

 trating and active a solvent as the gastric juice, 

 seeing that it consists of materials similar to a large 

 proportion of our food? He ascribes to the living 

 principle in animals the power which the stomach 

 possesses to resist that action of its gastric fluid 

 which penetrates and dissolves the aliment. In 



d Sec hi* Inaugufal Viiserfatio/i, published at Ediwbur^h, in the year 

 #777. 



