LECTURE IV. 163 



not only upon the food, but also upon the 

 stomach itself, so as to form a large aper- 

 ture by which the contents escape. 



Having reflected upon all these circum- 

 stances, and raade numerous experiments 

 on the subject of digestion, we find him 

 afterwards employed to open the body of a 

 patient (who died when attended by Sir 

 John Pringle, then President of the Royal 

 Society,) in which a partial solution of the 

 stomach had taken place. The appearance 

 was to Sir John both new and unacount- 

 able ; but when Mr. Hunter told him that 

 it was not the effect of disease, but of solu- 

 tion by the gastric fluids ; that he had fre- 

 quently seen it, and that it made one of the 

 reasons which induced him to believe di- 

 gestion to be the effect of a solution of the 

 food by the gastric fluid ; the president 

 urged him to draw up a paper on the sub- 

 ject ; which was printed in the year 1772, 

 in the 62d volume of the Philosophical 

 Transactions. This paper attracted the at- 

 tention of Spalanzani and others, and led 

 them to make and publish experiments 



M 2 



