VOL. XIV.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 71 



windings of the intestines ; for otherwise the digested meat would move too 

 fast from the stomach, and so torment us with perpetual hunger. 



The ingredients of the natural ferment I take to be these. The saliva, the 

 succus of the glands of the stomach, and a nitro-aerial spirit of the nerves. 

 That the saliva is an ingredient, may seem probable from these reasons. 

 1 . Because that by the help of this, meats though impregnated with different 

 principles, may be made to mix with a menstruum. 2. Since the saliva is 

 impregnated with a volatile salt,* it is probable that that also may help 

 digestion. The second ingredient is thought to be a liquor, that is separated 

 by the glands in the bottom of the stomach. By these therefore it seems pro- 

 bable, that the glands in the tunica villosa separate a fermenting liquor ;-f- and 

 it is further observed, that those creatures which have the most of these glands, 

 are the most voracious. Lastly, that the nitro-aerial spirits of the nerves are 

 an ingredient of the stomachical ferment, seems reasonable from the arguments 

 of Dr. Mayow, who argues thus : Now, since the animal spirits consist of 

 nitro-aerial particles, it will not be difficult to conceive how the aforesaid effects 

 are produced by them in the stomach. For though the nitro-aerial spirit be 

 not acid, yet by it iron is corroded, vitriols are perfected, fixed salts are brought 

 to a fluor, and the compages of things are dissolved as by a universal 

 menstruum. 



Abstract of a Journal of the Philosophical Society of Oxford, being an Account 

 of some Experiments relating to Digestion ; and of a large Bed of Glands 

 observed in the Stomach of a Jack, Aug. IQth, l684. Bi/ Mr. Musgrave. 

 N° 162, p. 699- 



Part of a mucous substance, taken out of the stomach of a jack, near the 

 pylorus, and mixed with solution of sublimate, became much whiter than it 

 was before. Another part of it, mixed with syrup of violets, turned green. 

 Mr. Musgrave has observed like effects, by mixing a liquor, found in the 

 stomach of a hedge-hog, with syrup of violets, and with solution of sublimate. 

 These experiments are urged as an argument against the existence of an acid 

 ferment in the stomach : it seems probable, that the great work of digestion 

 proceeds from a volatile alkali.;}: 



* Phosphate of ammonia. 



-f- The gastric juice. The terms " fermenting liquor" and " stomachical ferment," are extremely 

 unapposite, since it is the nature of the gastric liquor to prevent fermentation. On this occasion we 

 cannot but refer for a more accurate and complete view of the subject of this paper, to the late Dr. 

 George Fordyce's Dissertation on the Digestion of Food. 



} It is so difficult to obtain the gastric juice in a state of purity, that it is doubtfiil vfhether the 

 alkali which showed itself in these experiments was derived from it, or from the alimentary sub- 

 stances dissolved in it. The latter conjecture is the most probable. 



