almost insensible pulse, an unfrequent and indistinct respiration. It is a 

 iact well worthy of observation, that the muscles and viscera of some of 

 them, when examined after death, shone with a light evidently phospho- 

 ric*. Can it he that phosphorus is the result of the lowest degree of ani- 

 rndization? It may be easily conceived, that living in a manner, on their 

 own substance, the fluids in such persons have been frequently subjected 

 to the causes which produce assimilation and animaiization, and have un- 

 dergone the greatest alteration of which they are capable. 



The proximate cause of hunger has by some been conceived to depend 

 on the friction of the nervous papillae of the empty stomach on each other; 

 by others, it has been imputed to the irritation produced on its parietes, 

 by the accumulation of the gastric juice. It has been thought to depend 

 on the lassitude attending the permanent contraction of the muscular 

 fibres of the stomach ; and on the compression and creasing of the nerves, 

 during that permanent constriction; on the dragging down of the dia- 

 phragm by the liver and spleen, when the stomach and intestines being 

 empty, cease to support those viscera: a dragging which is the greater, 

 as a new mode of circulation takes place in the viscera, which are sup- 

 plied with blood by the caeliac artery, and while the stomach receives less 

 blood, the spleen and liver increase in weight and size, because their sup- 

 ply is increasedf. 



Those who maintain that hunger depends on the friction of the pari- 

 etes of the stomach against each other, when brought together in an 

 empty state, adduce the example of serpents, whose stomach is purely 

 membranous, and who endure hunger a long time, while fowls, whose 

 powerful and muscular stomach is able to contract strongly on itself, en- 

 dure it with difficulty. But to say nothing of the great difference of 

 vitality, in the organs of a bird and of a reptile, the stomach which con- 

 tinues closing on itself as it is emptied, may contract to such a degree as 

 scarcely to equal in size a small intestine, without its following, as a ne- 

 cessary consequence, that the parietes which are in contact should exert 

 on each other any friction, on which the sensation of hunger may depend. 



* Nitidissima viscera sunt animalium fame enectorum, ei argcntei Jibrarum fasiculi.- 

 JUiiEB, Elem. Phys. torn. VI. page 183. 



\ The most prevalent opinions respecting the proximate causes of hunger are, that it 

 is owing to the action of the gastric juice on the stomach, or that it is a sensation con- 

 nected with the contracted state of this organ and the corrugation of its internal mem- 

 brane. It is not unlikely that both causes may contribute to the production of this sen- 

 sation, in consequence of the impression which they make on the sentient extremities 

 of these cerebral nerves which reinforce the vital operations of the stomach. The state 

 of the absorbent vessels, and the irritation which the gastric fluid induces on the ex- 

 tremities of these vessels, during an empty state of this viscus, ought also to be taken 

 into consideration in our speculations respecting the origin of this sensation. 



The following experiment of Dr. \V. PHILIP, detailed in his excellent work on indi- 

 gestion, appears to confirm the opinion that the influence of the gastric juice on the 

 stomach is, in some way or other, productive of the sense of hunger. 



" A person in good health was prevailed upon to abstain from eating for more than 

 twenty hours, and further to increase the appetite by more exercise than usual. At the 

 end of this time he was very hungry ; but, instead of eatine:, excited vomiting by drink- 

 ing; warm water, and irritating the tauces. The water returned mixed only with a ropy 

 fluid, such as the gastric fluid is described to be by Spallanzani, or as I have myself ob- 

 tained it from the stomach of a crow. After this operation, not only all desire to eat was 

 removed, but a degree of disgust was excited by seeing- others eat. He, however,, was 

 prevailed upon to take a little milk and bread, which in a very short time ran into the 

 acetous fermentati oh, indicated by flatulence and acid eructations." Copland. 



