not, however, ruminate at all periods of their life. The sucking lamb 

 does not ruminate : the half digested milk does not pass along the paunch 

 or the bonnet, which are useless, but at once descends into the third 

 stomach*. Some men have been capable of a kind of rumination; the 

 alimentary ball, after descending into the stomach, shortly alter rose in- 

 to the mouth, to be there chewed a second time, and to be anew imbued 

 with saliva. Conrad Peyer has made this morbid phenomenon the sub- 

 ject of a dissertation, entitled Mericologia, sine fa t&r-inantibm\. 



This fourfold division of the stomach, so favourable to Mailer's theory, 

 is observed only in ruminating' animals. But though animal* are in ge- 

 neral monogastric, as map? that is, provided with only one stomach, this 

 viscus offers a number of varieties, the most remarkable of which refer 

 to the relative facility which the food meets, in remaining within its ca- 

 vity. The insertion of the oesophagus is nearer to its left extremity, and 

 the great fundus of that viscus is smaller, as animals feed more exclusive- 

 ly on flesh, which is a substance of remarkably easy decomposition, and 

 not requiring for its digestion a long stay in the stomach. In herbivo- 

 rous quadrupeds, which do not ruminate, this great fundus forms nearly 

 one half, sometimes even the greater part of the stomach, as the oesopha- 

 gus enters into it very near the pylorus. In some, as in the hog, the sto- 

 mach is divided into two parts by a circular contraction. The food 

 which is received into the great fundus of the stomach, may remain 

 longer in that viscus, as this part of its cavity lies out of the course of 

 the aliment. 



XX. Of the Gastric Juice. Of all the organs, the stomach probably re- 

 ceives, in proportion to its bulk, the greatest number of blood-vessels j 

 in its membrane-muscular parietes, which are little more than the twelfth 

 part of an inch in thickness, there is distributed the coronary artery of 

 the stomach, entirely destined to that organ , the pyloric, the right 

 gastro-epiploic, given off by the hepatic artery. The greater part of the 

 blood, therefore, which passes from the aorta to the. cseliac artery goes to 

 the stomach, for thougr 11 ot tne arteries into which that trunk is divided, 

 the coronary of tne stomach is the least, the arteries of the liver and 

 spleen send to the stomach several pretty considerable blanches, before 

 entering the viscera to which they are more particularly allotted. One 

 need only observe the great disproportion between the stomach and the 

 quantity of blood which it receives, to conclude, that this fluid is not 

 merely subservient to its nutrition, but is destined to furnish the materi- 

 als of some secretion. 



The secretion in question, is that of the gastric juice, which is most 

 abundantly supplied by arterial exhalation, from the internal surface of 

 the stomach ; it is most active at the instant when the food received \ 

 within its cavity, excites irritation, transforms it into a centre of fluxion^ 

 towards which the fluids flow from all directions. The state of fulness 

 of the stomach, favours the afflux of the fluids into the vessels, as, in con- 

 sequence of the extension of its parietes previously collapsed, the vessels 

 are no longer bent and creased. The arteries of the stomach, of the 

 spleen and liver, arising from a common trunk, it may be easily under- 



* Seethe Journal of Foreign Medicine published in Philadelphia* No. 4, p. 472".. 

 Godman. 

 | See APPENDIX, Note K. 



