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 resembling 

 by it's composition the gastric juice of the hu- 

 man 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 era- 



* Magendie, Precis Element, de Physiologic, vol. i, p. 13 

 and 25. 



