350 Sir Everard Home's observations on 
cavities in which it takes place, has been acquired ; from which 
we learn that there are three different kinds of organization 
employed, in adding to the food three different ingredients 
which are requisite for its conversion into a material that can 
be assimilated with living animal matter, and be employed in 
carrying on the functions of life, also supplying the waste 
which is constantly taking place. The most important of 
these is evidently the gastric glands, next in order may be 
considered the honeycomb structure, and least so, although 
by no means unnecessary, the foliated membranes, which we 
know, from what takes place in the Java swallow, form the 
mucus that is mixed with the other ingredients. 
That the stomach is occasionally met with after death 
divided into two portions by a muscular contraction, T have 
shown upon a former occasion, and I have there given it 
as my opinion, that this takes place while the process of 
digestion is going on. This opinion may, in the minds of 
many physiologists, require some stronger proofs than I have 
been able to give, but this, like many other muscular con- 
tractions which take place during life, is so often removed in 
the very act of dying, as rarely (and in some of them never) 
to be seen after death. We are therefore indebted to the 
effect of disease sometimes rendering them permanent, for 
any knowledge we have of their existence. 
In this way, strictures in the oesophagus, just where the 
fauces terminate, and the oesophagus begins, being of frequent 
occurrence, and upon examination of the parts after death, 
found to have taken place unconnected with any disease in 
the surrounding parts, teaches us, that this part has an invo- 
luntary contraction when any irritating matter is applied, and 
