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XIV. Some observations relating to the function of digestion. By A. P. W. Philip, 



M.D. F.R.S. L. 8s E. 



ReadJanuary 16, 1829. 



JN O arguments are necessary to convince us of the importance of that func- 

 tion on which all parts of our frame depend for their nourishment. In one 

 respect its organs may be regarded as of greater importance than even tliose 

 which are more immediately essential to life. The sympathies of the stomach 

 and first intestine are both more powerful and more extensive than those of 

 any other part, and consequently more generally and in a gi-eater number of 

 ways contribute to the cause, and influence the course of all our more serious 

 diseases. 



I am induced to trouble the Society with the following observations, in the 

 hope that I shall be able to place before them some points relating to the 

 function of the stomach in a clearer point of view than has hitherto been done. 

 In former papers which the Society have done me the honour to publish, and 

 more fully in a Treatise on the Vital Functions, I have endeavoured by ex- 

 periment to trace the different steps of the process of digestion in the stomach. 

 It appeared that the food remains in a quiescent state, except that the part of it 

 which lies next the stomach, as soon as it has undergone the effect of the 

 gastric juice, is, in consequence of food thus prepared exciting a peculiar action 

 in the muscular fibres of this organ, carried on towards the pylorus ; through 

 which it is propelled into the intestine, the next portion of food thus brought 

 into contact with the stomach undergoing the same process ; and so on, till the 

 whole is in a state proper for that part of the digestive process which belongs 

 to the first intestine. 



Thus the muscular fibres of the stomach are in continual action during its 

 function ; for the gastric juice pervading the contents of the stomach to a cer- 

 tain extent, the change effected by it on each particular portion of the food is 



MDCCCXXIX. T 



