50 HUNGER. 



The supposition of an acrimony generated in the gastric juice, 

 &c. being a cause of hunger, is absurd. The fluid would be unfit 

 for its purposes, and would be more likely to destroy than produce 

 appetite. 



Hunger has been attributed by some to a sympathy of the sto- 

 mach with a genera) feeling of want in the system. But hunger 

 is removed immediately that a due quantity of food is swallowed, 

 long before the general system can have derived benefit from the 

 meal : fowls are satisfied when their crops are filled, although 

 their food is not even ground, preparatorily to digestion, till it has 

 passed from the crop into the gizzard ; and ruminating animals leave 

 off eating before they begin to chew the substances with which they 

 have distended their stomachs. Again, persons unable to obtain 

 food in sufficient quantity lessen their hunger by swallowing any 

 innutritious and indigestible matter. The circumstance giving 

 rise to this opinion is the continuance of hunger although food be 

 taken in abundance, in cases of scirrhous pylorus and enlarged me- 

 senteric glands. Here, it is urged, the hunger continues, because 

 the body receives no nourishment. But, in scirrhus of the pylorus, 

 vomiting generally soon follows the reception of food into the 

 stomach; and therefore this organ is reduced to the condition in 

 which it was previously, and the return of hunger is easily expli- 

 cable : but I do not know that a continued hunger commonly 

 occurs in cases of scirrhous pylorus. In diseases of the mesen- 

 teric glands there is, in fact, no obstruction to the course of the 

 chyle. They are found permeable, according to Dr. Boekker, a 

 German anatomist, and the continued hunger appears rather a 

 part of the diseased state of the chylopoietic viscera. Besides, 

 many cases of imperfect nutrition, from various causes, occur, 

 without any increase of appetite : and where there is an in- 

 crease of appetite, the process of digestion seems to proceed with 

 unusual rapidity, so that the stomach becomes empty sooner than 

 in health. In continued abstinence, although the system is daily 

 more in want, hunger usually ceases after a few days, whether 

 from the stomach falling into a state of relaxation, becoming dis- 

 tended with wind, or from other circumstances. 



If hunger arose from fatigue of the stomach, it should be 

 greatest immediately after the laborious act of digestion, and gra- 

 dually decrease ; but it on the contrary increases. 



Were irritation the cause, hunger should be greatest when the 

 stomach is filled with food. 



