504 Medicine. [Chap. IV^. 



1 he celebrated Mr. John Hunter is to be always 

 enumerated among those who have improved our 

 knowledge on the subject of digestion. In addi- 

 tion to many other improvements, he endeavoured 

 to solve the question, how the stomach itself can 

 remain unhurt, while it encloses so penetrating 

 and active a solvent as the gastric juice, seeing 

 that it consists of materials similar to a large pro- 

 portion 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 

 confirmation of this, he observes that intestinal 

 worms can remain a considerable time unhurt in 

 the stomach, while they retain the principle of life ; 

 but as soon as they lose this, they are dissolved and 

 digested, like other substances. In like manner 

 he asserts, that while the stomach itself retains this 

 living principle, the gastric fluid cannot exert its 

 solvent powers on it; but when the person dies, 

 particularly in cases of violent and s]adden death, 

 that fluid immediately begins to corrode it, and 

 sometimes is found to have made its way entirely 

 througli the coats of the stomach into the cavity of 

 the abdomen*. 



It seems therefore to result, from all the most 

 successful inquiries concerning digestion made 

 during the eighteenth century, that this function 

 is variously perlbrmed by mechanical action, or 

 chemical solution in different animals, according to 

 the structure of the stomach, and the nature of the 

 gastric secretion; and that in man, and many 



* riiil. Trans, vol. Ixii, p. 44;. 



