DIETETICS. 



parts of which were digested. Animal 

 substances : 1. Pork dressed various 

 ways. 2. Black puddings. 3. Fritters 

 of eggs, fried eggs and bacon. Vegeta- 

 ble substances : 1. Salads of different 

 kinds, rendered more so when dressed. 

 2. White of cabbage, less soluble than 

 red. 3. Beet, cardoons, onions, and leeks. 



4. Roots of scurvy grass, red and yellow 

 carrots, succory, are more insoluble in 

 the form of salad than any other way. 



5. The pulp of fruit with seeds, when not 

 fluid. 6. Warm bread, and sweet pas- 

 try, from their producing acidity. 7. 

 Fresh and dry figs. By frying all the 

 substances in butter or oil they become 

 still less soluble. If they are not dissolv- 

 ed in the stomach, they are, however, in 

 the course of their passage through the 

 intestines. Substances soluble or easy 

 of digestion, and which are reduced to a 

 pulp in an hour, or an hour and a half. 

 Animal substances : 1. Veal, lamb, and in 

 general the flesh of young animals, are 

 sooner dissolved than that of old. 2. Fresh 

 eggs. 3. Cows' milk. 4. Perch boiled 

 with a little salt and parsley ; when fried 

 or seasoned with oil, wine, and white 

 sauce, it is not so soluble. Vegetable 

 substances : 1. Herbs, as spinach, mixed 

 with sorrel, are less soluble ; celery, tops 

 of asparagus, hops, and the ornithogalus 

 of the Pyrenees. 2. Bottom of artichokes. 

 3. Boiled pulp of fruits, seasoned with 

 sugar. 4. Pulp or meal of farinaceous 

 seeds. 5. Different sorts of wheaten 

 bread, without butter, the second day 

 after baking, the crust more so than the 

 crumb, salted bread of Geneva more so 

 than that of Paris without salt ; brown 

 bread, in proportion as it contains more 

 bran, is less soluble. 6. Rapes, turnips, 

 potatoes, parsnips not too old. 7. Gum 

 arable ; but its acid is soon felt : the Ara- 

 bians use it as food. Substances which 



facilitate the menstrual power of the gas- 

 . trie juice are, sea-salt, spices, mustard, 

 scurvy grass, horse radish, radish, ca- 

 pers, wine, spirits in small quantities, 

 cheese, particularly when old, sugar, 

 various bitters. Substances which retard 

 the gastric power are water, particularly 

 hot, and taken in large quantities. It oc- 

 casions the food to pass into the intes- 

 tines without being properly dissolved. 

 All acids, astringents, twenty-four grains 

 of Peruvian bark, taken half an honr 

 after dinner, stop digestion. All unctu- 

 ous substances, kermes, corrosive subli- 

 mate. 



Gosse likewise observed, that employ- 

 ment after a meal suspended or retarded 



digestion, as well as leaning with the' 

 breast against a table ; and that repose of 

 mind, vertical position, and gentle exer- 

 cise, facilitate it. It likewise appears, 

 that from the soluble power of this fluid 

 digestion goes on after death, but it is 

 far less considerable than in the living 

 animal ; that in fishes it retains its pro- 

 perty of digesting flesh, but in an infe- 

 rior degree to that of birds; and that in 

 some animals heat is necessary to this 

 power, which acts independent of the vi- 

 tal power. 



i Hunter attributes to the action of the 

 gastric juice, the erosions found in the 

 stomachs of those who have die.d sudden- 

 ly, in which sometimes the great curva- 

 ture of that organ is entirely consumed ; 

 he often found them on opening dead bo- 

 dies; the edges of the wounds appearing 

 like half-digested food. 



Such is the stupendous power of that 

 fluid which is perpetually secreting by 

 the stomach in a state of health, in order 

 to comminute and dissolve into a pul- 

 taceous mass the alimentary substances 

 which are introduced into it. Here, how- 

 ever, the action of the gastric juice, and 

 perhaps of the stomach itself, ceases: for 

 whatever is found in the stomach is 

 chyme, or this pultaceous and uniform 

 mass alone. We have no chyle, except 

 by regurgitation from the smaller intes- 

 tines. The stomach is therefore altoge- 

 ther a preparatory organ, and it appears 

 to be the action of the different fluids se- 

 creted from the collatitious viscera, the 

 saliva, the pancreatic juice, and the bile, 

 (we confine ourselves to the more per- 

 fect animals) that are alone able to con- 

 vert this comminuted chyme into the 

 saccharine fluid, called chyle, as it de- 

 scends through the pylorus, or inferior 

 orifice of the stomach, into the duodenum, 

 in which the process of chylification is 

 chiefly performed, and amidst the folds 

 or valvidte conniventes of which the lac- 

 teals are most numerously seated. 



Yet it is not every thing the stomach is 

 capable of dissolving, that the secondary 

 action of the chylopoi'etic viscera is capa- 

 ble of converting into food, or of convert- 

 ing with equal facility ; nor is it every sub- 

 stance, as we have already seen, contain- 

 ing the real principle of aliment, that the 

 stomach itself is capable of dissolving in 

 the same period of time, or with the same 

 degree of ease. 



Hence the necessity of attending to 

 what we have made the second branch in 

 our present tract on dietetics, the nature 

 ot different alimentary substances, and 



