KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



337 



THE HUMAN STOMACH. 



Nature's with " little" pleased. " Enough's " a feast ; 

 A sober life but a small charge desires. 

 But man, the author of his own unrest, 

 The more he eats, the more he still requires. 



Born 



f &&%T^ ^^ "CODES OF HEALTH," AND 

 /(^^J^V OUR " RULES FOR LIVING," 



> \Y.\W\f^ \ have, we find, immortalised us 

 all over the civilised world. 

 Even those who at first dif : 

 fered from us have gradually 

 veered round, and now con- 

 fess we are right. This is well. We love to 

 see people enjoy themselves; nay, more — we 

 like to join in their enjoyment, "provided 

 always "' Moderation takes the head of the 

 table, and Discretion sits as Vice-President. 

 Then can we be jolly as anybody. Our 

 animal spirits are positively boundless. This 

 by the way. 



The human Stomach is a curiosity 

 with certain powers, it exercises them always 

 for the benefit of its owner ; but when over- 

 tasked, it turns restiff, and very properly 

 throws off its load. A good thing is it that 

 it can throw it off ! Our aldermen must think 

 so sometimes, for their motto is, — 



Oh ! that my stomach were a cable long, and 

 every inch a palate ! 



We have just received a very useful and a 

 very clever little work, called " Memoirs of 

 a Stomach ;" and the preceding remarks have 

 been made by way of introducing its author, 

 who is just the sort of person to write such a 

 book — being " A Minister of the Interior." 

 We have a great regard for this said minister, 

 and most cordially recommend the cultivation 

 of his acquaintance by all who are in the 

 habit of eating and drinking. He peeps into 

 the stomach of a babe, deluged with pap ; 

 and tells us, in vivid language, all the narrow 

 escapes from destruction we every one of us 

 have experienced, from the pap-boat upwards. 

 This is done sagaciously and pleasantly ; in- 

 deed we never met with a more waggish 

 " Minister of the Home- department." Soft 

 as pap is, he hits us hard with it ! 



But as everybody will read this book, we 

 shall merely offer a few random extracts. 

 What is a Stomach? Listen to its own 

 voice : — 



My personal appearance, I must acknowledge, 

 is not prepossessing, as I resemble a Scotch bag- 

 pipe in form, the pipe part being the oesophagus or 

 gullet, and the bag myself. I often wish there 

 were more " stops," especially when I am played 

 upon by gluttony ; and perhaps there would have 

 been, could I give vent to noises similar to those 

 of the Caledonian instrument, whose strains are 

 so terrible that the brave Highlanders are said to 

 rush into battle to escape them. 



If every Stomach could speak, would it not 

 be loud in abuse of its owner ! We think so. 



An infant, everybody knows, is flooded in 

 milk whenever it begins to pipe. This uni- 

 versal remedy, we find, the infant stomach 

 considers unwise. But the noisy teat-ling 

 cannot always be supplied by its own mother ; 

 and, in such a case, it is handed over to a 

 "wet nurse," who largely increases its internal 

 torments by the peculiar flavor of the 

 supplies : — 



The sweet almondy taste of the delicious food 

 my poor mother gave me, — says the Stomach, — 

 was changed to a sort of London milk, slightly 

 impregnated with Geneva. The tricks this woman 

 played were frightful. The doctors told her to 

 drink porter ; and so she did, and every other sort 

 of liquor into the bargain, to be obtained at the 

 public-house. The worst of it was, I had no re- 

 dress, but I took care to let everybody participate 

 in my disgust, by inciting my neighboring arms 

 and legs to kicks and contortions ; and to the small 

 voice which dwelt upstairs, I suggested such shrill 

 cries as made every person in the house detest the 

 little body of which I was the centre. 



This accounts for so many ugly babies, — 

 said to be " choked with wind ! " But now for 

 a step further. We are peeping into a cup of 

 bread-sop — a most curious-looking, unlikely 

 article, for keeping a child's stomach in 

 order : — 



I believe my innocent attendants imagined they 

 were giving me ground corn. Corn, indeed ! Why, 

 when I came to test it by the aid of my powerful 

 machine of analysis — a machine so strong I could 

 dissolve a marble, and tell you its component parts 

 — when, I say, I came to test it by a strong acid, 

 I found that there was not more than twenty per 

 cent, of flour in the whole composition, the remainder 

 being made of a common sort of starch, alum, 

 ground bones, potato flour, and often plaster of 

 Paris. In a penny bun lately analysed, were found 

 three grains of alum and ten of chalk, and in others 

 plaster of Paris. 



We cannot, nor is it needful for us to follow 

 the Stomach in all its accurate delineations of 

 what is going on hourly in the whole human 

 race. We can only wonder that the " Bills 

 of Mortality" are so comparatively light, 

 considering the pains taken to produce sudden 

 death, or lingering illness, by every one who 

 has a stomach. The " Minister of the Inte- 

 rior" is justly hard upon tobacco, and the 

 fumes of smoke; which no doubt do send 

 tens of thousands yearly to their long home. 

 We have written against the use of it, till we 

 are weary, — also, against its twin brother, 

 ardent spirit. The Stomach says, that 

 tobacco is — 



A most deadly weed ; a spirit of evil ushered in 

 by fire, and exorcised by sickness! Nature made 

 it nauseating — -poisonous: but man, combating 

 with the penalty she placed upon his use of it, 

 puffs away through a whole existence ; and this 

 first specimen I received was the puff preliminary. 

 Kepetition overcame my dislike to the taste, and 

 at length with the true philosophy of my race, I 



Vol. III.— 22. 



