( ^3J ) 
A port Difcouyfe cmcerning ConcoBion : Read 
at a Meeting of the Royal Society^ May 
i6ppy by Clopton Havers, M. Fellow 
of the Royal Society, 
TH E Mariner itrwhich the Digeftion of the Ali- 
ment is performed, is a thing not very eafie to 
be underftood and explain'd. However, it has nqit 
efcap'd the Conjedures of fome Philofophical Men, who 
having curioufly obferv'd the Phmomena of Nature, 
and enquired into their Caufts, have, amongft other 
things, endeavour'd to account for this. But their 
Sentiments about it have been various, and the Hypo- 
thefis, by which they have ftudied to explain it, very 
different. Some have thought the Concodtion of the 
Food to be a kind of Elixation ; and that the grofler 
and more (olid Parts being as it were boiled in the Li- 
quid by the Heat of the Stomach, and the Parts adja- 
cent to it, as the Liver, Spleen, and Omentum, are by 
a long and continued Elixation firft rendered more ten- 
der, and then coUiquated, and diflblved into minuter 
Particles, foasto mix more equally with the fluid, and 
with that to make one Pulpament, or chybus Mafs. 
And Hippocrates^ tho' he does not plainly call it an E- 
lixation, yet (eems to attribute the ConcodJion of the 
Food to the Heat of the Stomack, as the Caufe of it: 
Seil.^, Lihro de falulri vtEius rat tone. So where he 
takes Notice of the voiding of fuch Forces as appear to 
be like the Food that has been eaten, he adds, Conflat 
enim, Jane 'ventriculum, cihorum copiam^ ut concoquat^ 
calefacere non pojfe. And there are other Paflagesin the 
fame Book, from which we may conclude, that he fup- 
M m pos'd 
