AMD ANIMAL LIFE. 75 



LXVII. He grants that the lungs are always 

 disordered, or rather that their office is destroyed, 

 by dividing the eighth pair. Since digestion, in 

 every instance, is modified by the action of the 

 lungs, at one time excited, at another depressed, 

 by the quality of the blood, can we for a mo- 

 ment suppose that the secretion of the gastric 

 juice will take place when the lungs have entire- 

 ly lost the power of supplying to the stomach, 

 and every other part of the body, a fluid possess- 

 ing its natural properties ? If we believe, with 

 this physiologist, that the nervous energy acts on 

 the blood transmitted to the stomach, it cannot 

 be imagined that the quality and motion of the 

 sanguineous fluid are of trifling consequence to 

 this agent. Does it possess the faculty of im- 

 proving the deteriorated properties of the blood, 

 of controlling its circulation, and, at the same 

 time, the power of converting it to the necessary 

 wants of the stomach? If such endowments 

 characterized its exercise, the function of the 

 lungs would almost be unessential to the sys- 

 tem. 



LXVIII. It is stated, that the stomach and 

 oesophagus are generally found distended in 

 those rabbits in which the eighth pair of nerves 

 have been divided ; and he says " that this arises 

 from the fruitless efforts to vomit." He does 

 not explain how vomiting distends the stomach, 

 nor can I conceive the possibility, for it is prov- 



