Dr Beaumont mentions, as a general result from his experiments on St Martin, that vegetable food is slow of digestion; but it is much to be regretted that he gives the particulars of only one or two trials, which lead to no very important results. In one of these already mentioned, St Martin ate “nine ounces of _raw_, _ripe_, _sour_ apples, at 2 o’clock 35 minutes. At 3 o’clock 30 minutes, the stomach was full of fluid and pulp of apples, quite acrid, and _irritating the edges of the aperture, as is always the case when he eats acescent fruits or vegetables_.”[53] In another instance, ten ounces of _raw cabbage_ were given, and in two hours not a particle of it was to be found in the stomach; while on a third occasion, half a pound of _raw cabbage_, cut fine, and macerated in vinegar, disappeared in little more than one hour and a half! If in the latter experiments the cabbage was really digested, and not merely propelled out of the stomach into the intestine, we shall be forced to admit that we have still much to learn concerning the digestibility of different kinds of food, for the result is contrary to all generally received opinions. When vegetables are allowed, great stress is commonly laid upon the necessity of their being thoroughly cooked; and yet, according to these experiments, _raw_ cabbage is very nearly as digestible as soft boiled rice or sago! It is strange that Dr Beaumont should not have remarked this anomaly, which he seems not to have done, since he neither attempts to explain it nor alludes to it as any thing extraordinary. My own suspicion is, that the cabbage was not entirely digested, but had merely passed through the pylorus into the intestine. Dr Beaumont’s testimony in favour of farinaceous vegetables is, however, more precise and satisfactory. In some of his experiments, St Martin digested completely a full meal of _boiled rice_, seasoned with salt, in a single hour. _Soft custard_ and _boiled rich sago_, sweetened with sugar, and taken in quantities of a pint each time, were disposed of with nearly equal dispatch, and “there was no acrimony of the gastric contents, or smarting of the edges of the aperture, during their chymification, as is usual in most vegetable and farinaceous aliments;” on the contrary, the sago “seemed peculiarly grateful to the surface of the stomach, rendering the membrane soft, uniform, and healthy.”[54] In these instances, it ought to be remarked, nothing else was eaten at the same time; so that the stomach was not oppressed by _quantity_.