HUNGER. 51 



On the whole, hunger may perhaps be regarded as a sensation 

 connected with the contracted state of the stomach. 



It occurs when the stomach, being empty, must be contracted, 

 and is increased instantaneously by a draught of cold liquid, which 

 cannot but contract the stomach, and corrugate its inner coat : 

 acids, bitters, and astringents have the same effect, and from their 

 nature they may be supposed to act in the same way. Cold air 

 applied to the surface increases it, and, in all probability, by a 

 similar operation ; for the impression of cold upon the skin excites 

 an attempt at evacuation in the urinary bladder, and, when all 

 other means fail to induce the intestines to expel their contents 

 or the uterus to contract after delivery, the affusion of cold water 

 so frequently succeeds, that the omission of the practice in obsti- 

 nate cases is highly censurable. It is diminished by heat and 

 every thing which relaxes. Again, it ceases immediately that 

 the stomach is filled and thus the organ dilated and all corru- 

 gation removed; and, the more the contents of the stomach are of 

 a nature to be absorbed or passed into the duodenum, the sooner 

 it recurs. Distension of the stomach is universally acknowledged 

 to be incompatible with hunger; whence the proverb, " a full 

 belly loathes the honey-comb." 



The Otomacs during the periodical inundation of the rivers of 

 South America, when the depth of the waters almost entirely pre- 

 vents fishing, appease their hunger for two or three months by 

 distending their stomach with prodigious quantities, a pound a day 

 and upwards, of a fine unctuous, strong-smelling, yellowish-grey 

 clay, slightly baked, and destitute of all organic substance, oily or 

 farinaceous.* The savages of New Caledonia, in the Pacific Ocean, 

 in times of scarcity, do the same by eating a friable lapis ollaris, 

 consisting of equal parts of magnesia and silex, with a little oxide 

 of copper. The wolves, rein-deer, and kids of Siberia, when 

 pressed by hunger in winter, also devour clay or friable steatites. 

 The Kamtschatkans sometimes appease their hunger by distending 

 their stomach with sawdust, for want of something better. 



Being, in this view, a sensation connected with a local state of 

 the stomach, it will be affected not only by whatever affects this 

 state, but by whatever affects also the sensibility to this state, and 



a Humboldt, Tableaux de la Nature, t. i. They become so fond of it, that 

 they take a little, even when well provided with sustenance, and are compelled to 

 tie their children's hands to prevent them from geophagising. 



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