178 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



itself. Of this last surprising dissolution I say 

 nothing; because it is chemistry, and I am en- 

 deavouring to display mechanism. The figure and 

 position of the stomach (I speak all along with a 

 reference to the human organ,) are calculated 

 for detaining the food long enough for the action 

 of its digestive juice. It has the shape of the 

 pouch of a bagpipe ; lies across the body ; and the 

 pylorus, or passage by which the food leaves it, is 

 somewhat higher in the body than the cardia or 

 orifice by which it enters ; so that it is by the con- 

 traction of the muscular coat of the stomach that 

 the contents, after having undergone the applica- 

 tion of the gastric menstruum, are gradually 

 pressed out. In dogs and cats, this action of the 

 coats of the stomach has been displayed to the 

 eye. It is a slow and gentle undulation, propaga- 

 ted from one orifice of the stomach to the other. 

 For the same reason that I omitted, for the pre- 

 sent, offering any observation upon the digestive 

 fluid, I shall say nothing concerning the bile or 

 the pancreatic juice, further than to observe upon 

 the mechanism, viz., that from the glands in which 

 these secretions are elaborated pipes are laid into 

 the first of the intestines, through which pipes the 

 product of each gland flows into that bowel, and 

 is there mixed with the aliment as soon almost as 

 it passes the stomach ; adding also as a remark, 

 how grievously this same bile offends the stomach 

 itself, yet cherishes the vessel that hes next to it. 

 Secondly. We have now the aliment in the in- 



