364 
EXPERIMENTS ON DIGESTION. 
liquefied in the mouth by means of the water contained in the 
saliva. By means, also, of the carbonates and acetates and chloru- 
rets of potassium and sodium which it contains, it softens the food, 
and even dissolves it to a slight degree. The experiments of 
Reaumur and Spallanzani on the ruminants prove this. The ani- 
mals, whom they made to swallow food enclosed in tubes, digested 
it much more easily after it was moistened with saliva than 
with pure water. We dare not to decide whether the sulpho- 
cyanuret of potassium contributes to the softening of the food. 
Perhaps it assists in destroying its vital contractile property. 
3. The saliva contributes also to the assimilation of the food, 
and communicates to it the property of becoming more easily ani- 
malized. This opinion is confirmed by the fact that herbivorous 
animals have much larger salivary glands than those who live on 
animal substances. The assimilating action of the saliva on the 
food probably consists in imparting to it its salivary matter, its 
osmazome, and, possibly, also, its albumen. This, however, is a 
problem which we cannot satisfactorily resolve, on account of the 
little knowledge that we have of the composition and properties 
of the salivary matter and the osmazome. 
4. The saliva is the medium through which the aliments exer- 
cise their influence on the gustatory nerves, since the sensation of 
taste is only perceived when the aliment is to a certain degree 
moistened, or dissolved. 
The food thus comminuted and impregnated with saliva in 
the cavity of the mouth passes into the stomach by means of the 
influence exercised upon it by the organs of deglutition. 
The Accumulation of Food in the Stomach. 
The stomach, which in an empty state is contracted upon itself 
by the power of its muscular tunic, submits to considerable changes 
in its form and structure as the food accumulates in it. Its parietes 
are distended by little and little, commencing from the cardiac 
orifice. In proportion as fresh masses arrive, the food that has 
previously descended is pushed towards the middle and pyloric 
portions of this viscus. The distention of the latter is favoured 
by its situation between the two laminse of the peritoneum which 
form the epiploons — omentum. In proportion as its volume aug- 
ments, these laminse separate from each other, and apply them- 
selves to the surface of the stomach, and the epiploons are thus 
contracted. The tunics placed over each other, and forming the 
walls of the stomach, are distended by the alimentary mass. The 
numerous and undulating rugse which the internal or mucous 
membrane of the stomach offered in a state of vacuity are effaced. 
