204 ON ANIMAL AND 



these two fluids, the chyle, or nutritive part, is 

 separated from that which is feculent and super- 

 fluous ; and being absorbed and conveyed into 

 the blood, serves to supply the waste which the 

 secretions, and other operations in the animal 

 economy, are uniformly occasioning. 



This tube, which throughout is supplied with 

 blood vessels, nerves, glands, and absorbents, 

 has three coats the outer of which is membra- 

 nous, serving as an external covering ; the second, 

 or middle coat is muscular, by which the actions 

 of the tube are produced ; and the third or inter- 

 nal is villous, that is fibrous and velvet like, in 

 which is the apparatus that separates the fluid 

 (more especially in the stomach,) so essential to 

 the process of digestion. 



The stomach, though forming part of the same 

 tube, differs from the other portions of it, in its 

 shape, situation, and capacity ; in the number 

 and arrangement of its muscular fibres ; in pos- 

 sessing a much larger and a far more active 

 expansion of nervous membrane by which it 

 sympathizes directly with many other important 

 organs ; in an apparatus for the preparation of 

 the gastric juice, the grand menstruum of diges- 

 tion, and, by laying horizontally, in being the 

 receptacle and the chief source of action of every 

 thing that passes from the mouth into the tube. 

 We cannot, therefore, be surprised, that any 

 great injury done to this organ, should so fre- 



