532 Trans. Acad. Sci. of St. Louis. 
perfect health; except for this habit, they did not disclose 
any deviation from the physiological standard. In my case 
there is seemingly a primary muscular insufficiency of the 
stomach, which appears to be a product of prenatal influences, 
a baleful legacy of a line of ancestors afflicted with a weak 
digestive viscus. To prove or disprove by actual data the 
existence of these influences is alike impossible, as we are 
rarely allowed to lift the veil off the past, beyond the 
second generation of progenitors. Few women or men 
know anything about the physical condition and habits of 
their great-grandparents, though they may be found brim- 
ful of information as to the social, intellectual and, perhaps, 
moral status of their ancestry, centuries back. Does the 
paresis of the cardiac sphincter or the atony of the entire 
organ stand in any causal relation to my patient’s ruminating 
habit? The former, as we well know, gives rise frequently 
to repeated and very persistent regurgitations of food. But 
rumination is something more than regurgitation; whenever 
the latter takes place, any of the stomach contents present 
at the time are sent up indiscriminately: at one time it may 
be solid food, at another chyme, or gas or fluid. In the case 
before us, the regurgitating act occurs with plainly 
selective precision; only, portions of the food that 
are in need of further mastication are returned with 
almost marvelous regularity. This feature stamps the case 
as one of rumination. The general atony of the organ cannot 
be considered seriously as a causal factor, for rumination is 
an act calling for actual, though perhaps slight exertion on 
the part of the muscular fibers of the stomach, the extrinsic 
abdominal muscles being never called upon to aid in the con- 
summation of the act. 
My attempts at solving the problem having failed thus far, 
there is but one more thing to be done, and that is to find how 
much or how little the process of atavic tendency or reversion 
to ancestral types may have had to do with the establishment 
of this unusual condition. Eugéne Martel,* in a contribution 
to the Revue internationale des Sci Médicales (1886), quot- 
* Stedman, ‘ Article on Rumination,” Reference Handbook of the Medi- 
cal Sciences, Vol. VIL. 
