THE GREAT SPINAL ORGANIC NERVE IN THE ABDOMEN. 235 
pared for the subsequent processes of digestion — the stomach 
being, previously to the operation, devoid of food, no longer gives 
warning of its state of inanition ; the sensations of hunger and 
thirst are excited no more — nor does this viscus give notice of an 
unnatural state of repletion, but continues to receive the food until 
the gullet as well as the inferior viscus is distended almost to 
bursting. No longer does the stomach respond to the influence 
of nauseating substances, and reject them by the act of vomit- 
ing : all is still as death ; except only that the secretion of the 
gastric juice, dependent on another system of nerves, and the 
partial chy unification of the food, slowly proceed. There have 
been numerous experiments which irrefragably prove the facts 
which I am stating, and compel us to acknowledge, that in these 
nerves reside the whole power of gastric sensibility and motion. 
Experiments as to the Motions of the Stomach. — When using 
the trocar in distention of the stomach of cattle or of sheep by 
gas, have you never felt the little instrument almost forced out of 
your hand by the strong peristaltic motion of the rumen ? You 
have punctured the superior portion of the rumen ; has not the di- 
rection in which that viscus worked been evidently forwards — 
from the puncture which you have made, onward toward the 
chest ? The interior of the stomach of St. Martin having been 
exposed to view by an accidental perforation of it, the contents, 
and the disposal of those content s, and the manner of the working 
of that viscus, were rendered indisputably evident, and the ver- 
micular or worm-like motions of the stomach could not be mis- 
taken. These are unequivocal proofs both of the oscillatory and 
the peristaltic motion of the stomach. 
The experiments of numerous physiologists prove that both 
these motions are suspended when the great spinal organic nerve 
is divided. As I have already stated, no food escapes from the 
stomach, and that portion alone of the ingesta is converted into 
chyme which is in contact with the gastric juice — the process of 
chymification is, therefore, not suspended but delayed. Dr. Beau- 
mont put this to the test with St. Martin. He hung portions of 
meat in the stomach by a string so short as to prevent them from 
being fully subjected to the motions which are always going on 
during digestion. The action of the gastric juice was confined 
almost entirely to their surface, and a longer time was then re- 
quired for their solution than when they were left at liberty. 
Experiments as to the Sensibility of the Stomach . — I will re- 
late to you two experiments by Brachet, which are perfectly 
decisive. He kept a dog without food twenty-four hours — he 
seemed to be devoured by hunger. He then divided the spinal 
organic nerves. The animal being set at liberty, ceased to search 
