653 



juice, far from accumulating, is digested as an 

 alimentary substance. If a cat or dog be made 

 to swallow a substance, which is not susceptible 

 of being digested, a pebble for instance, a mu- 

 cous and acid liquid is formed abundantly in 

 the cavity of the stomach, somewhat resem- 

 bling by it's composition the gastric juice of the 

 human body*. It appears to me very probable, 

 according to the analogy of these facts, that, 

 when the want of aliments compels the Oto- 

 macs and the inhabitants of New Caledonia to 

 swallow clay and steatite during a part of the 

 year, these earths occasion a powerful secretion 

 of the gastric and pancreatic juices in the di- 

 gesting apparatus of these people. The obser- 

 vations, which I made on the banks of the Oroo- 

 noko, have been recently confirmed by the direct 

 experiments of two distinguished young physio- 

 logists, Messrs. Hippolyte Cloquet, and Bres- 

 chet. After long fasting, they ate as much as 

 five ounces of a silvery green and very flexible 

 laminar talc. Their hunger was completely 

 satisfied, and they felt no inconvenience from a 

 kind of food, to which their organs were unac- 

 customed. It is known, that great use is still 

 made in the East of the bolar and sigillated 

 earths of Lemnos, which are clay mingled with 

 oxid of iron. In Germany, the workmen em- 



* Magendie, Precis Element, de Physiologie> vol. i, p. 13 

 and 25. 



