1884.] Fhysiology. 1165 
the upper surface of the stomach, and at the same time the ab- 
dominal walls contracted energetically; a morsel of food was 
thus thrown up rapidly into the mouth, any excess of water in it 
being pressed out and swallowed; then began a long series of 
cud chewing movements, at the beginning of which occurred a 
copious flow of saliva into the mouth; finally, with a swallowing 
movement the mouth was emptied and the masticated morsel sent 
back for its complete digestion. The amount of food regurgi- 
tated was determined by the sphincter muscles at the cardiac 
opening of the paunch, these muscles relaxing at the beginning 
of the act but closing finally again when a small amount of food 
had been forced out. The whole series of movements was readily 
brought about by electrical stimulation of the wall of the paunch, 
or when this was mechanically excited by distension with warm 
water or by pressure with the hand. Strange to say the flow of > 
saliva and the chewing movements followed in regular order ex- 
pulsion of food from the paunch, though the morsel was not, in 
Some cases allowed to enter the mouth but was expelled lower 
down from the divided cesophagus. This artificially excited act 
of rumination could only be provoked when the pneumogastric 
nerves were intact. 
Luchsinger concludes that rumination is a complex reflex 
action, the stimulus to which is the distension of the walls of the 
CIRCULATION oF Bioop Corpuscies.—Dr. G. J. Hamilton has 
made an examination of the physical conditions which affect the 
movement of solid bodies suspended in a circulating fluid with 
reference to the analogous case of the blood corpuscles in the 
living body, and his results are full of suggestiveness in the ex- 
hology. bp pee 
e 
It was 
to flow throu í feet 
gh a horizontal tube several I l 
balls or disks of wax and other substances of various sizes an 
aia &ravities were dropped into the current 
the bar this simple scheme of the circulation 
. ats Or disks when specifically lighter or 
Said were carried along de aides a the tube, in the former case 
