622. The quantity of blood sent to the stomach is greater than is spent upon any other organ except the brain. The vessels of the stomach (fig. CLXIX.) form two distinct layers, of which the external is distributed to the peritoneal and muscular coats, while the internal, after ramifying on the fine cellular tissue which unites the muscular and mucous tunics, penetrates the mucous coat, and is spent upon the villi, where it forms an exquisitely-delicate net-work. There is, moreover, an intimate vascular connexion between the spleen, pancreas and liver, and the stomach (fig. CLXVIII. 8, 9). The arteries which supply all these organs spring from a common trunk, and there is the freest communication between them by anastomosing branches. [Illustration: Fig. CLXX.—_View of the Organic Nerves of the Stomach._ 1. Under surface of the liver turned up, to bring into view the anterior surface of the stomach. 2. Gall bladder. 3. Organic nerves enveloping the trunks of the blood-vessels. 4. Pyloric extremity of the stomach and commencement of the duodenum. 5. Contracted portion of the pylorus. 6. Situation of the hour-glass contraction of the stomach, here imperfectly represented. 7. Omentum.] 623. Equally abundant is its supply of nerves, some of which are derived from the organic or non-sentient system, and others from the animal or sentient system. The organic nerves are spread out in countless numbers upon the great trunks of the arteries, so as to give them a complete envelope (fig. CLXX. 3); these nerves, never quitting the arteries, accompany them in all their ramifications, and the fibril of the nerve is ultimately lost upon the capillary termination of the artery. It is by these organic nerves that the stomach is enabled to perform its organic functions, which, for the reason assigned (vol. i. p. 82), is placed beyond volition, and is without consciousness. By the nerves derived from the sentient system which mingle with the organic (fig. XVI.), the function of nutrition is brought into relation with the percipient mind, and is made part of our sentient nature. By the commixture of these two sets of nerves, derived from these two portions of the nervous system, though we have no _direct_ consciousness of the digestive process—consciousness ceasing precisely at the point where the agency of volition stops (vol. i. p. 82, et seq.), yet pleasurable sensation results from the due performance of the function. Hence the feeling of buoyancy, exhilaration, and vigour, the pleasurable consciousness to which we give the name of health, when the action of the stomach is sound: hence the depression, listlessness, and debility, the painful consciousness which we call disease, when the action of the stomach is unsound: hence, too, the influence of the mental state over the organic process; the rapidity and perfection with which the stomach works when the mind is happy—when the repast is but the occasion and