the gastric glands of the human stomach , &c. 
rise above the surface, giving the appearance of foliated 
membranes. In the duodenum this takes place in a greater 
degree, and the loose edges of these membranes, when en- 
tangled in the mucus that covers them, puts on an appearance 
of rounded glandular bodies, but these admitted of being 
expanded so as to explain the deception. 
The description which I have given of the internal mem- 
brane of the stomach, proves how nearly my late ingenious 
friend, Dr. George Fordyce, who examined its surface with 
very inferior means to those employed upon the present 
occasion, had approached the truth, when he declared it to 
be composed of cellular membrane. 
I have shown upon more occasions than one, that the gas- 
tric glands are both largest and most numerous in those ani- 
mals destined to inhabit the least fertile regions of the earth, 
and are smallest as well as fewest where the supply of food 
is most abundant, to prevent the body being injured by the 
effects of over feeding. If this arrangement was necessary 
in animals, it became still more so in man, whose means of 
procuring and preparing food for himself so much exceed 
those of all other animals, and who is, contrary to his reason, 
too readily disposed to carry the indulgences of the table to 
excess. In him the gastric glands, as it was natural to ex- 
pect, are so small, as to require the aid of Mr. Bauer’s mi- 
croscope to prove that they belong to the same series of 
structures as the gastric glands of the ostrich, which admit 
of being minutely examined by the naked eye. 
Much is still wanting to enable us to understand the pro- 
cess of digestion : it is, however, no small step in this investi- 
gation, that a more correct knowledge of the structure of the 
