ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY 



chemical process. He collected quantities of gastric 

 juice, and placing it in suitable vessels containing 

 crushed grain or flesh, kept the mixture at about the 

 temperature of the body for several hours. After re- 

 peated experiments of this kind, apparently conducted 

 with great care, Reaumur reached the conclusion that 

 " the gastric juice has no more effect out of the living 

 body in dissolving or digesting the food than water, 

 mucilage, milk, or any other bland fluid." 3 Just why 

 all of these experiments failed to demonstrate a fact so 

 simple does not appear; but to Spallanzani, at least, 

 they were by no means conclusive, and he proceeded 

 to elaborate upon the experiments of Reaumur. He 

 made his experiments in sealed tubes exposed to a cer- 

 tain degree of heat, and showed conclusively that the 

 chemical process does go on, even when the food and 

 gastric juice are removed from their natural environ- 

 ment in the stomach. In this he was opposed by 

 many physiologists, among them John Hunter, but the 

 truth of his demonstrations could not be shaken, and 

 in later years we find Hunter himself completing 

 Spallanzani's experiments by his studies of the post- 

 mortem action of the gastric juice upon the stomach 

 walls. 



That Spallanzani's and Hunter's theories of the ac- 

 tion of the gastric juice were not at once universally 

 accepted is shown by an essay written by a learned 

 physician in 1834. In speaking of some of Spallan- 

 zani's demonstrations, he writes: "In some of the ex- 

 periments, in order to give the flesh or grains steeped 

 in the gastric juice the same temperature with the 

 body, the phials were introduced under the armpits. 



