Volume 1

The works of John Hunter / edited by James F. Palmer.

Date:
1835-37
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The works of John Hunter / edited by James F. Palmer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    out anything but a stomach. But for the continuance of the species you must have parts of generation; and a polypus is a stomach and parts of generation in one*; and the complicating an animal is no more than adding other parts for various purposesf- To one animal which has a brain and nervous system, you have ten thousand without them. The power and operation of digestion is perhaps as curious a part of the animal ceconomy as any whatever; at present, however, it is not for me to explain these operations, but it is necessary for me to take some notice of the connexion between this viscus and the animal (Eco- nomy in general; in doing which we shall find it to be as much the seat of universal stimulus and irritability as the brain is of sensibility. This connexion, as in the case of sensibility, is much greater in some parts than in others : the connexion that all the vital parts have with the stomach is much greater than between the others, which may be called voluntary, which is only saying in other words that the con- nexions among the vital parts is more immediate than between the vital parts and those which are not vital. In diseases the brain seems to be intimately connected with the sto- mach, and vice versd. It was as necessary for the stomach to be con- nected with the whole body as for the brain, although not in so marked a manner; but that it is as immediately connected with the body as the brain we may certainly say. The affections of the stomach with the body are not so strong as those of the brain, the mind being made sensible of the least injury done to a part, while the stomach is not at all affected under many partial injuries of the body. The stomach is more affected from the internal oeconomy of the ani- mal than from external influence, which is the reverse of the brain; for external influence in general can only be local, and local injury does not affect the stomach unless it be previously disturbed, or unless the injury is in certain parts, as the brain, the testes, and many of the vital * [“Nothing more is necessary to complete an animal than the power of continuing the species, which power is superadded to this bag in many.”—Hunterian (MS.) Cat., Phys. Series, vol. i. p. 113.] •f- [Nothing can be more simple than the apparatus for digestion in the lowest ani- mals ; but in the higher animals “ the parts preparatory and subservient to digestion become more complicated, and indeed so much so, that there is hardly any system in an animal more complicated in itself; and when we consider the varieties of these com- plications which take place in the various animals, they appear to be almost without end. “ The parts subservient to digestion in the complicated animals bear a great relation to the other properties of the animal,” so that “ animals in general might be tolerably well classed by these organs.”—Ibi(k'\