XIV. Some observations relating to the function of digestion. By A. P. W. Philip, 
M.D. F.R.S. L.8$E. 
Read January 16, 1829. 
No arguments are necessary to convince us of the importance of that func- 
tion on which all parts of our frame depend for their nourishment. In one 
respect its organs may be regarded as of greater importance than even those 
which are more immediately essential to life. The sympathies of the stomach 
and first intestine are both more powerful and more extensive than those of 
any other part, and consequently more generally and in a greater number of 
ways contribute to the cause, and influence the course of all our more serious 
diseases. 
I am induced to trouble the Society with the following observations, in the 
hope that I shall be able to place before them some points relating to the 
function of the stomach in a clearer point of view than has hitherto been done. 
In former papers which the Society have done me the honour to publish, and 
more fully in a Treatise on the Vital Functions, I have endeavoured by ex- 
periment to trace the different steps of the process of digestion in the stomach. 
It appeared that the food remains in a quiescent state, except that the part of it 
which lies next the stomach, as soon as it has undergone the effect of the 
gastric juice, is, in consequence of food thus prepared exciting a peculiar action 
in the muscular fibres of this organ, carried on towards the pylorus ; through 
which it is propelled into the intestine, the next portion of food thus brought 
into contact with the stomach undergoing the same process ; and so on, till the 
whole is in a state proper for that part of the digestive process which belongs 
to the first intestine. 
Thus the muscular fibres of the stomach are in continual action during its 
function ; for the gastric juice pervading the contents of the stomach to a cer- 
tain extent, the change effected by it on each particular portion of the food is 
MDCCCXXIX. t 
