236 
ANIMAL PATHOLOGY. 
for food, and immediately laid himself down. Brachet cut the 
food into small pieces and offered it to him, bit by bit ; he took 
it with evident indifference, but he would not stir to search for 
it. The physiologist continued to present the food, and the dog 
ate it, until he could not swallow any more because the oesopha- 
gus itself was quite full. 
He then took two guinea-pigs, and kept them fasting eighteen 
hours. They searched every where about for food, and made 
the place re-echo with their shrill cries. He divided the nerves 
concerning which we are speaking. He filled their little manger 
with crumb of bread — food which on the preceding day they had 
eaten greedily. They lay down, and took no account of it. 
He held it under their noses— -they began to eat, but with indiffer- 
ence. He placed the food a little way from them — they would 
not budge an inch. He then held it to them in small morsels, 
and they ate until they were unable to dispose of a particle 
more, for the oesophagus was filled to the very top. They were 
hungry enough before the operation, but the feeling of hunger 
was quite gone afterwards; and they ate only because they were 
stimulated by the smell of the food held under their noses. That 
stimulus being continued, they gorged themselves to the very 
mouth. The sense both of hunger and of satiety was destroyed 
when these nerves were divided. 
How many important consequences will follow if this func- 
tion of the spinal organic nerve is admitted ! With how many 
diseases and forms of disease are they connected ! They are 
the source of the sensibility of the stomach, and how materially 
are a thousand accompanying symptoms of disease, and, in 
many cases, the very essence of certain diseases, connected 
with the state of this organ, and its irritability or obtuseness, or, 
in other words, with the agency of this portion of the nervous 
system ? We are not prepared yet to enter on this wide and inte- 
resting field of inquiry ; but we must not forget these and similar 
facts when we are treating of a variety of diseases. 
These gastric nerves receive and transmit the impressions of 
medicines. If a narcotic is administered, its effect on the cere- 
bral system is often felt in a moment, and always long ere it 
could have been digested and absorbed, and its influence con- 
veyed through the medium of the circulation. It is transmitted 
to the medulla oblongata, and thence to the brain, in an al- 
most inconceivably short period of time. This can be effected 
only through the medium of the spinal organic nerves. “ I gave 
a certain portion of opium (says M. Brachet) to two dogs of the 
same age and strength, having previously divided these nerves 
in one of them. The dog that had not been operated upon was 
