2J4 THE PHILOSOPHY 



Similar experiments were made with French beans, peafe, nut- 

 kernels, bread, apples, and different kinds of fiefh and fifh, all of 

 which were diflblved, both in tubes, and in the cavity of the fto- 

 mach, by the gaftric juice. 



Spalanzani finifhes his experiments on digeftion with thofe ani- 

 mals which have thin membranous ftomachs. This clafs compre- 

 hends an immenfe number of fpecies, as man, quadrupeds, fifhes, 

 reptiles. In thefe the coats of the ftomach feem to have little or no 

 adion upon their contents, the gaftric juice being fully fufficient to 

 break down the food, and reduce it to a pulp. 



With regard to man, Dr Stevens, in an Inaugural DiiTertation con- 

 cerning Digeftion, publifhed at Edinburgh in the year 1777, made 

 feveral experiments upon a German, who gained a miferable lively- 

 hood by fwallowing ftones for the amufement of the people. He 

 began this ftrange pradlice at the age of feven, and had at that time, 

 continued it about twenty years. He fwallowed fix or eight ftones 

 at a time, fome of them as large as a pigeon's egg, and paffed them 

 in the natural way. Dr Stevens thought this poor man would be 

 an- excellent fubje£t for afcertaining the folvent power of the gaftric 

 juice in the human ftomach. The Doftor, accordingly, made ufe 

 of him for this purpofe. He made the German fwallow a hollow 

 filver fphere, divided into two cavities by a partition, and perforated 

 with a great number of holes, capable of admitting an ordinary 

 needt'e. Into one of thefe cavities he put four fcruples and a half 

 of raw beef, and into the other five fcruples of raw bleak. In twen- 

 ty-one hours the fphere was voided, when the beef had loft a fcruple 

 and a half, and the fifli two fcruples. A few days afterwards, the 

 German fwallowed the fame fphere, which contained, in one cavity, 

 four fcruples and four grains of raw, and, in the other, four fcruples 

 and eight grains of boiled beef. The fphere was returned in forty- 

 3 three 



