LECTURE IV. 167 



nest hope that the character of an English 

 surgeon may never be tarnished by the 

 commission of inconsiderate or unnecessary 

 cruelty. I need not, Gentlemen, caution 

 you, who must feel anxious to maintain 

 the respectability as well as the reputation 

 of the medical character, against publishing 

 experiments disgusting to common decency. 



Now though Mr. Hunter clearly per- 

 ceived that liquors could be and were pre- 

 pared, possessed of surprising powers of 

 assimilating the food to the nutritive fluids 

 of the animal, he was likewise equally ap- 

 prized of the variety of means which na- 

 ture has instituted to prepare the food for 

 digestion, and facilitate the action of the 

 gastric fluids. With this intention, some 

 animals are made to grind or comminute 

 their food with their teeth, but this is 

 not essential to the function of digestion, 

 neither does it take place in the majority 

 of animals. Therefore Mr. Hunter seems, 

 in his Museum, to have placed the teeth 

 amongst the weapons and instruments 

 which are allotted to animals. 



M 4 



