properly chewed, by a kind of gutter, without falling back into the firft ftomach. The third is lined with folds, each covered by a multitude of little knobs, like to thofe of a rafp. These folds are fo difpofed, that one fits into another, so that nothing can pass this bowel without undergoing the compreffion of the folds, and the rubbings of thefe rafp-like tubercles; all which the contraction of this bowel, and the alternate motion, caused by refpiration, fet at work.

At length the chyle being thus advanced, paffes from this third to a fourth ftomach; where, by the help of a new trituration, it is quite perfected, and made fit to enter into the blood.

I am aware that some naturalifts have maintained that fermentation is the principle caufe of digeftion. But I think trituration alone can execute every purpofe thereof. It is evident the digeftion. of birds is effected fimply by grinding the food, and not by any kind of fermentative leaven. And who can think that nature, fo simple in herself, and in all her works, would be at the ufelefs expence of forming fo many ftomachs in ruminant beafts, if by the help of a digeftive leaven, of whatfoever kind you may imagine it, the could, by a prompt diffolution, convert their aliments into chyle. But to return.

In man, we find neither the gizzard and grinding ftones of the birds, nor the four stomachs of ruminant animals. But we find a band, which Galen says he cannot fufficiently admire, which diftinguishes man from quadrupeds, which afits reafon to perform fo many wonderful works. This hand, this true organum organorum, this abfolute inftrumentum inftrumentorum, is worth all the other. By the help of this hand, man can build mills to grind that corn, which ought to be the chief nourishment of the human kind. He can fift the flour; he can make a paste; he can knead it; he can ferment it; and bake it into bread: that principal food of almoft all men; that food, which, to become chyle, need only be mixed with drink, compreffed in the ftomach by the alternate contractions of the diaphragm and mufcles of the lower belly; and kneaded by the liver, the spleen, the cellules of the colon, and the pancreas; which, like fo many fifts, prefs inceffantly the sto

mach, and the food contained therein; and convert it into that cream which is called chyle.

This chyle defcending into the fmaller inteftines, by the help of thofe membranous circles difcovered therein, has its descent retarded, falling, as it were, from step to ftep; whilft these membranous folds, like the folds in the third ftomach of ruminant beafts, approaching each other by the contraction of the longitudinal fibres of thefe intestines, prefs and grind the chyle, render it more fluid, and aid its entrance into the orifices of the lacteal veins.

That digeftion is thus performed, and not by the help of ferments, any man may eafily prove: put bread, fufficiently moistened with water, into a bladder, let it be compreffed with your hands for the fpace of four hours, and you will find it turned to a white cream, analogous to chyle. All the experiments of the celebrated Verheyen to imitate digeftion, though aided by every l y leaven he could think of, could not produce such a refemblance of chyle. They entirely difgufted him with the system of fermentation, and made him a convert to that of trituration only.

As the works of that author are very fcarce, and may not be at hand for my readers to confult; and as the paffage alluded to is very curious, I fhall give it in his own words:

Qua vero ratione chilus in ftomacho digeratur, converteratur que in chilum, nec dum fufficiente ratione aut experientia ftabilitum eft.

Ego vero confideratis utrinque rationibus adhuc hærens animo ad experientiam, tanquam ad optimum magiftrum me converti ab ea doceri defiderans, an quidam liquores fecundum artem cum alimentis digetti, in iis aliquam chilificationis fimilitudinem producerunt. Sumpti itaque panem cum pauco butyro, et parum pomi acido dulcis mafticati adjuncta aliquali cerevifie quantitati pro more hujus patriæ quod compofitum ad digeftionem valde idoneum judicabam. Hanc mixturam, fecundum diverfas partes indidi diverfis veficulis, quarum uni adjeci aliquot guttas fpiritus vitrioli, alteri fpiritus falis, tertiæ nitri, et aliis unum quemdam alium liquorum, aut plures adjunxi. Unicam folum partem reliqui puram aliifque non permixtam, "Hafce veficulas ligaturis diftinctioB b b 2

nis gratia variis ac differentibus conftrictas, immifi aqua calidæ quam per horas circiter octo detenui in eo caloris gradu quem cum noftro ftomachali proxime convenire arbitrabar: Verum finita operatione via aliud laboris præmium retuli; nifi quod videram me nature methodum in cibo diffolvendo hac via nondum detexiffe fiquidem ubi in fano ftomacho cibus ille indubie breviori tempore fuiffet perfecte chilificatus, eundem in dictis veficulis vix notabiliter mutatum reperi.

"Infuper verifimile eft cibum in ventriculo etiam aliquatenus comminui, at quafi atteri per ejus latera motu periftaltico et agitatione partium adjacentium in eundem cibum jugiter impulfa. Nec refert quod impulfus ille non fit adeo validus, neque ventriculi latera dura atque fcindentia, cum etiam corpus atterendum not fit adeo firmum, et quia id ftomacho diu hæret latera illa fæpiffime impelluntur in eandem ejus partem, proinde ficuti videmus grana admodum dura, in momento comminui, et atteri a lapide molari duro et acuto, ita fufpicari poffumus cibum mollem et præviae vel mafticatione, vel artificiali preparatione multum diminutum decurfu temporis alterius diminui per dictum impulfum, nam ut eft in proverbia.

"Gutta cavat lapidem, non vi, fed fake cadendo."

Verheyen Suppl. Anat. Tra&t. 4.

c. 2. p. 25.

What the baker does in regard to bread, that the cook does in regard to meat. He makes it tender, prepares it, dreffes it; and makes thereof foups and broths, which need only pafs into the blood to be affimulated by the contractions of the heart and arteries. Nay, it is not even neceffary that fuch broths fhould enter the ftomach to nourish the "body, as I have seen in two very striking inftances.

A young man was fet on by thieves, who cut his throat, and left him for dead. Happily the great blood veffels of the neck efcaped the villains' knife, the fophagus and trachea were quite divided. These were fewed up, but it was impoffible for the man to take the leaft nourishment into his ftomach; yet he was fupported during feventeen days by clyfters of ftrong broth, till his wounds were cicatrized, and he was thereby enabled to fwallow food,

A young lady, daughter to an eminent counfellor, was fupported for ten days by broth clyfters, during a moft violent vomiting, which caft up blood, and threw her frequently into dreadful convulfions; and in which, water, ptifan, broths, nay diacodium and laudanum, were abfolute emetics.

As the foregoing lines prove the uniformity of nature in the generation, motion, and digeftion of animals, we now come to evince her uniformity in the production of difeafes. Sydenham obferves, Et profecto, haud minus se natura adftringit in morbis tam producendis, tam maturandis quam in plantis five etiam animalibus. In Prefat.

For example: What a diversity may we obferve in intermitting fevers ? Quartans, double and triple quartans, tertians, double and triple tertians, quotidians, and others, which depend on the fame difguifed caufe; which made Morton compofe one entire chapter, De Protei formi febris intermittentis genio : Yet, notwithstanding thefe different mafks, it is always one and the fame caufe which produces them. In all thefe various kinds, they differ only as more and lefs; and the cortex will cure them all.

What an infinite variety of symptoms may we obferve in thofe hyfteric convulfions, called vapours? Sed non spectabilior eft hujus morbi frequentia quam varietas illa multiformis qua fe prodit quam nec Proteus lufit unquam. SYD Yet it is always the fame caufe, which affords the fame indication, and requires the fame remedy.

After all that has been faid, can we doubt that all contagious difeafes de"pend upon the fame caufe; and have the fame principle, excepting only in the degrees of more or lefs? Is it not evident that nature uses the fame means to communicate the contagion in every diforder that has that character ?

If then we can prove that any one contagious diforder arifes from worms, it will go very far to prove that all others depend on the fame caufe, and that confequently canine madness is of that clafs; fince it does not occupy the loweft rank of contagious maladies.

Now, I maintain, as an undoubted fact, that there are contagious difeafes which depend on infects, that are transmitted from one body to another; fuch

as

as the itchings excited by crab-lice, cutaneous worms, fcald head, feurvy, evil, plague, the itch, and fuch ulcers as are called verminous, in which there is fcarce one furgeon, of any degree of practice, who has not feen infects fwarm.

The venereal difeafe alfo is produced by worms, which are transmitted from one body to another (which I will fully prove hereafter in a treatise on that fubject) as the following text in the Bible makes manifeft, viz. He that cleaveth to barlots will become impudent. Moths and worms fhall have him to heritage. Ecclefiaft. c. xix. v. 2. 3.

I fall here drop analogy, to take it up again when I come to point out the prevention and cure of canine madnefs. (The fourth Chapter in our next.)

THA

An Efay on the Paffions of the Antients. HAT love was (far beyond all others) the most predominant paffion in the breafts of the antients, is a truth fo evident, that I prefume it will not admit of any difpute: for if we examine the annals of antiquity with the most minute circumfpection, we fhall find that the greatest heroes, as well as the best and wifeft of men, have, in all ages, yielded implicit obedience to the refiftless impulses of that paffion, and have felt the displeasure of the fair fex with much greater fenfibility than the lofs of their most refpectable friends. It is true they will give us inflances of the moft generous and difinterested friendship, such as are indeed highly worthy. of our emulation; but, alas, how infinitely infufficient are they to counterbalance the weakneffes which are peculiar to that effeminate paffion of love.

Should we, with the hiftorian, follow an Achilles, an Alexander, or a Hannibal, to the field of battle, how would our bofoms glow with a tranfport of admiration even at the bare recital of their glorious actions. But how ridiculous and contemptible will thofe very heroes appear to us, when we behold them sobbing and fniveling at the feet of their falfe miftreffes, or expiring at the frowns of an infamous woman.

The heathen mythologifts were fo well convinced of the influence of love over the foul, that they have reprefented their imaginary deities not only fufceptible of that paffion, but intirely enflaved

by it; for we find that Jupiter himself condefcended to quit his celeftial manfions, incognito with his fon Mercury (who upon thefe ocafions feems to have moved in the humble fphere of pimp to his papa) that he might have the pleasure of enjoying a tete a tete with Alcmena, in the abfence of Amphitrion; and his various metamorphofes to poffefs himself of Europa, Leda, and the rest of those celebrated heroines of antiquity, are inconteftible proofs of his paffion for intrigue, and that he was fubject to the power of that blind bastard Cupid, as well as Alcides, who (though the firongeft of all the immortals) was content to yield the breeches to his fair helpmate, with all the complaifance of a modern well bred husband,

Though the Greeks in former ages always confidered marriage as their fummum bonum, or fummit of earthly felicity, Socrates, who was one of their most diftinguished philofophers, diffented from the general opinion, as appears by an epiftle which he wrote to one of his old acquaintances, in which he cannot help wondering what could induce him to enter into the matrimonial ftate while he had two-pence left in the world to purchafe a rope, with which he might have put an inftant period to his miferies; and concludes the epiftle with just hinting, that if, like Orpheus, he should be tempted to take a fhort trip to the infernal regions on his wife's account, it should be to requeft the devil's acceptance, rather than his reftitution of her.

The reflections of this bald pated cynic (however applicable to his own circumitances) are tinctured with a feverity which I cannot approve; and though they will certainly find a vindication in the infamous conduct of a Rhodope, a Meffaline, and a Lais, the conjugal fidelity of an Andromache, a Lucrece, or a Portia, will by no means admit them either juft or generous: and if we would ill-naturedly cenfure Helen as the fole caufe of the deftruction of old Troy, we should, in justice to the fair fex, acknowledge that the Romans were indebted to the injuries of Lucrece for the foundation of that liberty for which their republick was once fo universally famed.

Brutus, though a man in whom all the tender paffions feemed dead, repofed the moit generous confidence in a

woman

woman, when he trufted that glorious plan which he had concerted for the retoration of the Roman liberties, to the difcretion of Porcia, whofe conduct at that important crifis can never be fufficiently admired or applauded.

The vanity of the fair fex (however it may be tickled at the admirable conduct of Porcia) will be very fenfibly mortified when they reflect that Marc Antony loft the world, and was betrayed into the hands of Cæfar by the infidelity of Cleopatra; though it must be confeffed that Antony (begging his pardon) was a fool, and met with the fate he deferved, for putting it into the power of that mischievous gypfey to do him fo great a prejudice.

The boafted friendship of Alexander the Great to the family of the injured Darius, feems rather the refult of love than any real magnanimity of foul. For the man who could with his own hands inhumanly facrifice the most faithful of his friends for nobly difdaining to footh his mad ambition, by paying him the adoration of a deity, can have no pretenfions to a flame fo generous as friendfhip: nay, the most candid retrofpect of the life and actions of this vain-glorious monfter, will justify me in pronouncing him either an egregious fool or a mad barbarian, to run from one end of the world to the other to cut people's throats, and then fit him down and cry because it was not in his power to do them any more mifchief.

The conduct of Achilles feems altogether as exceptionable as that of Alexander; for though it is probable that he meant to appease the manes of his friend Patroclus, in the infults he offered to the expiring Hector, as well as to the remains of that immortal hero, it is, for the fake of his reputation, much to be wished that he could have given the more generous proof of his affection, as this circumftance proves him intirely divefted of every fentiment of that humanity which fhould adorn the heart of a conqueror.

The exemplary friendship of Cato and Lucius demands our admiration, though the former, notwithstanding all that can poffibly be urged in his behalf, has, upon the whole, but little claim to our esteem. When we fee him pent up in Utica with a few faithful friends, making a noble stand against the arms of

Cæfar, we commiferate his misfortunes, and while we admire his inflexible per-feverance in a virtuous caufe, we fee in him (as Mr. Pope elegantly expreffes it) "A great man ftruggling in the forms of fate." But O what a falling off was there! Had Cato, after a glorious though ineffectual ftruggle to preferve the liberties of his country inviolate, fubmited to the clemency of Cæfar, (who certainly held his virtues in the highest veneration) it is not to be doubted but he would have treated him as became a generous conqueror: but Cato's pride abfolutely forbid a fubmiffion to the victor, and made him prefer an inglorious death to a life of virtuous obfcurity. For if we even admit that there was a neceffity that he fhould die, (which I cannot conceive there was) it was certainly in his power to have met death in a more honourable manner: for by this last action of his life he has not only cancelled all its former glories, but, in my opinion, forfeited all pretenfions to the character of a good and virtuous man.

The admirers of Cato, aware of the infamy which his fall will reflect on his memory to the latest posterity, have attempted to exculpate the action, by taking a comparative view of the age in which he lived, and the prefent; but, unfortunately for them, this palliation cannot reasonably be admited; for though the moderns are bleffed with fuperior conceptions of the rewards and punishments of futurity, the Greek and Roman philofophers furnished them with precepts which expreffly forbid a practice fo horrid as fuicide.

All the indulgences and favours which Julius Caefar was continually fhowering on Affranius, could not fecure him the friendship of that ungrateful villian, who had actually formed a confpiracy to af· faffinate Cæfar, which was ripe for execution, when Servillus one of Affranius's flaves, who was admitted among the num ber of affaffins, flattered by the hope of a great reward, discovered the plot to Cefar; but upon finding hin felfdifapointed in his expectations, had the infolence to charge Cefar with ingratitude, before the affembled fenate, for not having rewarded him according to his demerits, for discovering the treasons of his master; for which fervice he infifted on the privileges of a free man, and folicited certain places of publick truft which were at

that