we may notice the peculiarity of it as related to the Intellect. Here, however, we have only to repeat what has been said on most of the feelings hitherto discussed, that there is comparatively little permanence in idea when the state of the organs is such as to forbid the reality. But the reality is one that can never be long absent. As a general rule, it is true of digestive and all other organic sensations, that they are exceedingly powerful when present, and exceedingly little realized when absent. They are very unlike sights and sounds, loves and hatreds, and other states that the intellect can retain in the ideal form; to imagine with effect the relish of a feast when under nausea, passes the power of the most vigorous memory.

The sensation connected with the lower extremity of the canal is chiefly of the nature of a feeling of relief from pain.

20. Another important healthy sensation of the alimentary canal is Hunger, the state preparatory to the one just described.

The physical concomitants of hunger are a collapsed condition of the stomach, and a deficiency of nutritive material in the system. The sensitive nerves distributed to the mucous surface of the stomach are first affected, then the nerves of the lower intestines, and finally an influence of the general system adds to the pain and the feeling of depression. It is considered probable that the state of the muscular fibres of the stomach makes a part of the case.-(WEBER.) These are at first loose and uncontracted, but at a later stage their characteristic (peristaltic) movements are commenced upon the empty tube. The cutting of the nervus vagus (supplying the mucous surface) does not entirely abolish the feeling of hunger. The feeling itself is of the uneasy or painful class, with a degree of massiveness and engrossment corresponding to stomachic feelings in general.

The appetite for eating commences with a pleasant feeling, and consists of certain indefinite sensations in the region of the stomach, accompanied by stimulation of the muscles of chewing, and by the secretion of saliva. This passes next

into an uneasy feeling; then come on oppressive gnawing pains, which are referred to the region of the stomach; these are followed by sensations of a still stronger kind derived from a more general action, under which the local feelings are submerged. This last is the state of inanition, or starvation.

Animals are driven in search of food after the nervus vagus is cut; which would seem to imply that the sense of starvation in the body generally is a part of the motive power of hunger. On the other hand it is contended, that when the digestion is diseased, the appetite for food is entirely wanting, however much the frame be suffering from want. The influence of the nerves and the nerve-centres is shown in the fact, that a desire of eating may exist when the stomach is full. In ordinary circumstances, the state of fullness of the stomach is followed by the sensation of Satiety.

21. The feeling of Nausea and Disgust is an effect indicating some great disturbance in the usual course of digestive operations. This state is associated with the act of vomiting, an act that may take place, 1. from the introduction of certain substances into the stomach, some of which, as bile, mustard, common salt, not becoming absorbed, must act simply by the impression they make on the mucous membrane; 2. By the introduction of emetics, as Tartar emetic, into the blood, or by the presence of certain morbid poisons in the fluid; 3. By mental emotion, as that excited by the sight of a disgusting object; 4. By irritation at the base of the brain.'-TODD and BOWMAN, II., p. 214. To these must be added sea-sickness. Inflammation of the brain in children usually shows itself first in violent vomiting. The act of vomiting is the result of a reflex stimulus, directed towards the muscles that compress the abdomen in the act of expiration of the breath. These muscles violently contracting, while the exit of the air from the lungs is shut up, squeeze the contents of the stomach upwards towards the mouth. The sensation of vomiting is in most cases horrible in the extreme. It proves by a strong instance the power of stomachic influences on the nervous

system. The sensation is one sui generis-no other feeling can at all compare with it. There are many forms of unendurable pain, but this has a virulence of its own, great both in quantity and in intensity. On the maxim that the abuses of the best things are the worst, the wretchedness of stomachic perversion would be a testimony of the aptitude for pleasure belonging to this part of the system.

In the stomach

The sensations of nausea are also accompanied by irregular movements of the muscles of the pharynx. These are the seat of the characteristic feeling of nausea. also, the sensation may be connected with irregular, or antiperistaltic movements in the muscular fibres.

The feelings of nausea and disgust, and the objects causing them, are expressed in our language by a variety of strong terms. The 'disagreeable' is originally what revolts the stomach, extended in its application to other forms of the unpleasing. Disgust' is the extreme opposite of relish. The fact that these words are among the strongest that the language affords to express dislike or aversion, proves how deep and intense is the feeling that they primarily refer to.

Besides the objects that produce disgust by actual contact with the alimentary canal, there are substances whose appearance to the eye is disgusting. Certain gases also affect the smell in the same way. Disgusting sights are mostly the result of association; but some nauseous smells act from the very beginning. The arrangements of human life, particularly address themselves to our protection against disgusts; and singularly enough, the chief things to be avoided are the products of living bodies themselves. This is the foremost aim of the operations of cleansing and the removal of refuse. The influences that stimulate a healthy digestion and relish are contrasted with their opposites by the term 'fresh,' which we spoke of already as a quality of respiration, but which has still more emphasis as opposed to the causes of disgust. The power of resisting nauseating influences is an indication of great stomachic vigour in the right direction.

There are many things entering into the ugly, or opposed to the beautiful; but nothing contrasts with beauty so entirely, or annihilates it so effectually, as a disgust.

22. The foregoing cases are intended to include the most prominent of our habitual and ordinary experiences in relation to the alimentary processes. With regard to the feelings arising from disease in the various organs of digestion, these are so many forms and varieties of pain. If we were to go systematically through the entire series of organs enumerated above, we should have to commence with mastication, and describe the pains and agonies which the teeth render familiar to us. Distemper of the salivary glands yields a sensibility, not of the acute kind, but annoying, and difficult to bear, like disordered secretions in general. The pains and disorders of the early stages of digestion, that is, in the stomach, where the sensitiveness is greatest, are very numerous, and are sometimes acute, but oftener not so. In proportion to the genial influence of a healthy digestion upon the general mass of sensibility, is the malign influence of an unhealthy digestive action. It is in extreme cases altogether overpowering, and renders futile almost every attempt to establish a pleasurable tone by other causes. The nervous connexion between the brain and the stomach is intimate and powerful; and shows itself in many ways. Not only is there a keen sensibility to stomachic states, but also a strong returning influence from the brain upon the digestive secretions in the way of supplementing their force, or aiding them by a stimulus from without. This partial dependence of stomachic vigour upon a derived power from the cerebral mass, is well attested by the tendency of an overworked brain to bring on disordered digestion. On the whole, however, we must make allowance for differences of temperament. The stomachic sensibility will be found very unequal in different individuals, just as we find inequalities in the feeling of music, or any other

• Wagner states (Elements of Physiology, 8 362), that 'Increased movements of the intestines have been observed when the corpora quadrigemina have been irritated.'

sense. Some persons count the feelings of digestion a very small item among the sources of pleasurable excitement; but I am led to suppose, from the prevailing attention to the choice and preparation of food, that, for the great majority of people, I have not overstated their importance.

On acute stomachic pains, it is not necessary to spend much discussion. They have their character chiefly from the great sensibility of the alimentary surface, which often makes a slight cause of irritation peculiarly keen and intolerable. On the subject of pains and distempers not acute, but connected with want of tone and vigour in the digestive system, or with deranged mucous surface, the pathologist and physician have much to describe. The stomach combines the nourishing and the purifying functions; and hence operates doubly upon the healthy condition of the blood, the general basis of bodily and mental vigour. A well-known form of depression accompanies deficiency in the excreting power of the alimentary canal; so much so, that a forced relief of the loaded organs produces a general exhilaration; the consequence of withdrawing impurity from the blood. But what chiefly interests us is to mark, as a specific mental experience arising out of many forms of alimentary derangement, the depression and ennui spread over the consciousness, at the times when any of these organs are failing to perform their part. This effect is one that, if not intense or acute, is powerful in its amount, and extremely difficult to combat, either by other stimulants, or by the action of the mind recalling or imagining situations of a less gloomy cast. It either resembles or else produces that physical depression of the nervous substance already considered; the likeness holds remarkably in the leading features, as in the distaste for existence while the state lasts, and in the extreme facility of forgetting it when it is gone. In the rational point of view, hardly any sacrifice is too much to prevent the frequent recurrence of this state, but so little hold does it take as a permanent impression, that the reason has very little power in the matter. Any feeling of general depression is easily