5 ee; 

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TT FP eS 
SECT. XIX. PHYSIOLOGY. 161 
a thick grey sediment. The flesh in the other 
tube was in a great measure dissolved, and was 
incorporated with the gastric juice, which had be- 
come more turbid and dense. What little remained 
had lost its redness, and was now exceedingly 
tender. Upon putting it into fresh gastric liquor, 
the remainder was dissolved in the course of a 
day.” p. 57. 
cccxcvi. These are the strongest proofs which 
Spallanzani has been able to adduce in favour of 
solution by the gastrie juice out of the body, and 
let them be contrasted with the facts known in 
healthy digestion. A period varying from four to 
six hours, completes the digestion of an ordinary 
meal; four days, with a change of gastric juice, 
are required to effect the solution of a few pieces 
of mutton out of the body. The gastric juice 
being the same in both cases, the difference in the 
rapidity of solution must therefore depend on the 
receptacle, and not on the solvent. If the aggre- 
gate of the Abbé’s experiments be taken exactly 
as they are related by him, they prove no more 
than that the gastric juice is a very feeble agent 
in the process of digestion, and some of them 
would lead to the belief that it has no solvent 
power greater than water. 
cccxcvil. “ Having prepared,” says he, “ several 
glass tubes of the length of six inches, I sealed 
them hermetically at one end, and the opposite 
x 
