DIGESTION. 
that this fiould have been at all contefted, when we find that 
feveral other animals are by 
, £0 wile on ania! 
dogs have learned i cat vegetables: and 
moreover, that thofe animals which form the 
food of the carnivorous fpectes are frd on vegetables, thcfe 
eircumftances will admit of eafy explanation. 
Man has not been able to introduce fo great a variety into 
his drink as into his folid food. Water lone perhaps, {upplies 
uman race; an eems pr epared 
for us of nature, as all asus mploy it, and it 
exceeds al other drinks in its properties as a ates and {ol- 
vent, we cannot doubt that itis the moft wholefome beverage : 
sea t is to be regaried merely.as a diluent, or whether 
nourithie in itfelf, feens a matter of doubt; although 
ie is little queft:on that life would be prolonged with the 
ufe of water beyord the period at which it would nea — 
eut any food or drink. The fa&, which has 
by the experiments of Fordyce, t that gold-ffh will nee in 
weight in pure diftilled water, and void foeces, feems cecifive 
in proving that thofe animals are nourifhed by it, and there 
can be no doubt that it _ nourifhment to vegetables alfo. 
e fome fermented liquor ha 
pee ile la domi the aon of inebriation by the al 
o c ntains; yet, undoubtedly, affording a cer- 
an portion of sounilinacas 
e fingular asta es have alfo been obferved con- 
cerning * drink. Several iflands between the tropics, particu- 
larly in the Pacific ocean, have no frefh water 5 7 : lies 
‘is mi - by aa milk of the cocoa-nut. drink 
fea-w n inftance occurs, in the re © Edin 
baer. ‘Medical cae of a woman who Tived for fifty years 
on whey only 
as 
hi pa Lease eee into the flomach ae- 
s the parietes of the organ, 
which are always contiguous in its empty ftate. Here the 
ftomach yields to the mechanical diftenfion without reacting. 
Yet it feems not to be entirely paflive ; or, at eee its coats 
The ali 
apply themfelves by a kind of tonic movement to the accu 
mulating matter. As the quantity of ae aerate the 
ach advances for s. 
ore a preparatory ofc cs 
a effential phenomenon - Ae funétion, namely, the fepa- 
ration of the nutritive and excrementitious parts of the ali. 
ment. Yet the food in its cavity is prepared for that fepa- 
ration ; it is rendered more. fluid, it experiences a great alter- 
t 
agent of this conven ? other words, what is ce action 
of the ftomach on t 
Various iasci have been framed in order to anfwer 
thie queftion e father of medicine, and the ancients in 
ae —— digeftion as effeGed by coétion. They 
did n g term mean to defignate any change fimilar 
to ae which aaianees experience when boiled ; the tem- 
perature of the ftomach is manifeftly inadequate to the ef- 
fe&. Moreover, cold blooded animals digeft as weil as 
thofe with warm blood; and the heat of fever, Anftead™ of 
invigorating, entirely deface the digeftive power. Coction, 
in the language of the ancients, means the alteration, maa 
turatron, the food in the ftc I 
cilitates thefe change 
tificial digeftion fhew ae ae aitric asno more effe 
than common water in foftening and bing the food, 
when the temperature is bow 21°: on the contrary, that its 
agency is very confiderable, when the mercury rifes to 30 and 
oe above the freezing point. Incold blooded animals 
€ ide is always much flower than in the warm blo 
The authors and partifen of the fyftem of fermentation 
have een in ood, when received into t 
a {pontaneous cone motion; by virtue of anes, ‘it ne 
of 
to a new order of combinatio ea e th 
fermentative procefs, by adding to thofe fubftances which 
mach, formed by a fubtle acid, or 
ay of a {mall portion of food remaining behind from the 
eding digeRion. The nature and caufes of fermentation 
impe 
t 
mentation, w was t 
unknown caufe, which a&ed du ae ot conven of veges 
table fubftances into wine or acid, ing their putrefac- 
tion, aGted alfo o during the coaverion or the food into chyme, 
« 
which were affigned 
by the greater 
number of phy as the caufe of the formation 
ind 
£ 
me. 
duced by ie eee fermentation ; but th 
was inconfiderable, compared with thofe who adopted the 
ones opinion. 
tf, ther 
er, if it were 
reduced to the one sir nes od placed in the fam 
perature out of the body. But this is by no means cafe 5 
fubftances are reduced a the flate of chyme in a fhort time 
inthe ftomach, which wruld remain unaltered for weeks in 
; ee is the cafe witt 
to be ne 
if the 
in th ae 
F 
ftomach it 
Ray and Boyle, - that hens voracious fifhes 
animals too large to be contained in the ponach, that pare 
only which was in the ftomaca was converted into chyme, 
while that which was in chee fiph ge remained entire, 
, too, the converfion were owing to fermentation, it 
ought always to take piace equally well, provided the tem- 
perature be the fame, whether the ftom ach be in a healthy 
ate, or not. Bat i Jit is well known thet this i is not the cafe, 
very much on the fate of the 
ftom Whe en that organ is difeafed, digeétion is conftantly 
ill Sioa Tn thefe cafes, indeed, fermentation fonetimes 
L2 appearss 
