DIETETICS. 
stances likewise become rancid, and flesh 
meat putrid, producing acid and putrid 
eructations, which is never the case in a 
state of healthy digestion; whilst, in many 
animals, tlie digestion is finished before the 
acetous or putrid fermentation can begin. 
Substances insoluble, or that were not 
digested in the usual time in the stomach. 
Animal substances : 1. Tendinous parts. 
2. Bones. 3. Oily or fatty parts. 4. Indu- 
rated white of egg. Vegetable substances. 
1. Oily or emulsive seeds. 2. Expressed oils 
of ditferent nuts and kernels. 3. Dried 
grapes, and the skins of fisji. 4. Rind of 
farinaceous substances. 5. Pods of beans 
and pease. 6. Skins of stone fruits. 7. Husks 
of fruits with grains or seeds. 8. Capsules 
pf fruit with grains. 9. Ligneous stones of 
fruits. 10. The gastric juice does hot de- 
stroy the life of some seeds, hence bitter- 
sweet, hemp, misletoe, and other plants 
which sometimes grow upon trees, are pro- 
duced by the means of the excrements of 
birds, the kernels of the seeds being defend- 
ed from the menstruum by exterior cover- 
ing. Substances partly soluble, or parts of 
which were digested. Animal substances : 
1. Pork dressed various ways. 2. Black 
puddings. 3. Fritters of eggs, fried eggs 
and bacon, vegetable substances. 1. Sa- 
lads of different kinds rendered more so 
when dressed. 2. White of cabbage, less 
soluble than red. 3. Beet, cardoons, onions, 
and leeks. 4. Roots of scurvy grass, red 
and yellow carrots, succory, are more inso- 
luble in the form of salad than any other 
way. 6. The pulp of fruit with seeds, when 
not fluid. 6, Warm bread and sweet pas^ 
try, from their producing acidity. 7. Fresh 
and dry figs. By frying all the substances 
in butter or oil tliey become still less solu- 
ble. If they are not dissolved in the sto- 
mach, they are, however, in the course of 
their passage through the intestines. Sub- 
stances soluble or easy of digestion, and 
which are reduced to a pulp in an hour, or 
an hour and a half. Animal substances : 
1. Veal, lamb, and in general the flesh of 
young animals, are sooner dissolved than 
that of old. 2. Fresh eggs. 3. Cows’ milk. 
4. Perch boiled with a little salt and par- 
sley ; when fried or seasoned with oil, wine, 
and white sauce, it is not so soluble. Ve- 
getable substances : 1. Herbs, as spinach 
mixed with sorrel, are less soluble ; ceieiy, 
tops of asparagus, hops, and the ornitlioga- 
lus of the Pyrenees. 2. Bottom of arti- 
chokes. 3. Boilgd pulp of fruits, seasoned 
witli sugar. 4. Pulp or meal of farinaceous 
seeds. 5. Different sorts of wheaten bread, 
without butter, the second day after bak- 
ing, the crust more so than the crumb, 
salted bread of Geneva more so than that 
of Paris, without salt ; brown bread in pro- 
portion as it contains more bran is less so- 
luble. 6. Rapes, turnips, potatoes, par- 
snips not too old. 7. Gum arable; but its 
acid is soon felt: the Arabians use it as 
food. Substances which facilitate the 
menstrual power of the gastric juice are 
sea-salt, spices, mustard, scurvy grass, horse 
radish, radish, capers, wine, spirits in small 
quantities, cheese, particularly when old, 
sugar, various bitters. Substances which 
retard the gastric power, are water parti- 
cularly hot, and taken in large quantities. 
It occasions the food to pass into the intes- 
tines without being properly dissolved. All 
acids, astringents, 24 grains of Peluvian 
bark, taken half an hour after dinner, stop 
digestion. All unctuous substances, kermes, 
corrosive sublimate. 
Gosse likewise observed, that employ- 
ment after a meal suspended or retarded 
digestion, as well as leaning with the breast 
against a table ; and that repose of mind, 
vertical position, and gentle exercise facili- 
tated it. It likewise appears, that from 
the soluble power of this fluid, digestion 
goes on after death, hut it is far less consi- 
derable than in the living animal ; that in 
fishes it retains its property of digesting 
flesh, but in an inferior degree to that of 
birds ; and that in some animals heat is ne- 
cessary to this power which acts indepen- 
dent of the vital power. 
Hunter attributes to the action of the 
gastric juice, the erosions found in the sto- 
machs of those who have died suddenly, in 
which sometimes the gieat curvature of that 
organ is entirely consumed ; he often found 
them on opening dead bodies ; the edges of 
the wounds appearing like half-digested food. 
Such is the stupendous power of that 
fluid which is peipetually secreting by the 
stomach in a state of health, in oider to 
communicate and dissolve into a pnltace- 
ous mass the alimentary substances which 
are introduced into it. Here, however, the 
action of the gastric juice, and perhaps of 
the stomach itself, ceases : for whatever is 
found in the stomach is chyme, or this pul- 
taceous and uniform mass atone. AVe have 
no chyle, except by regurgitation from the 
smaller intestines. The stomach is there- 
fore altogether a preparatory organ, and it 
appears to bo the action of the different 
fluids secreted from the collatitious viscera, 
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