These facts, if correctly observed, are of extreme importance; and from the care with which Dr Beaumont pursued his investigations, and their accordance with the facts recorded by preceding physiologists, I do not think their general accuracy can be called in question. The dry irritated appearance of the villous coat, and the absence of the healthy gastric secretion in the febrile state, not only explain at once the want of appetite, nausea, and uneasiness generally felt in the region of the stomach, but shew the folly of attempting to sustain strength, by forcing the patient to eat when food cannot be digested, and when Nature instinctively refuses to receive it. * * * * * Before dismissing this part of the subject, it may be remarked, that the alleged sympathy of the stomach with the wants of the body has been denied, because the sense of hunger disappears the moment food is swallowed, or the stomach is distended even with clay or saw-dust, although the actual wants of the system cannot by possibility have been supplied in either case. But these facts seem to me rather to justify the inference that a sympathy does exist. Hunger ceases when _food_ is taken, simply because _now_ the condition of the stomach is in the desired relation to the state of the body, and the nerves consequently feel and transmit this impression to the more distant parts. In the other case, again, it ceases because the stomach cannot at first distinguish what is food from what is not; and, therefore, when distended, expresses content, because it feels satisfied that it has been honestly dealt with, and got what it wanted. But whenever it discovers the cheat, which it does in no long time, hunger returns, and can be properly appeased only by digestible substances. Dr Beaumont indeed expressly mentions, that, although the gastric secretion _commences_ the moment any indigestible body touches the mucous surface of the stomach, it invariably _ceases_ soon after discovering that the substance is one over which it has no power,--thus strongly confirming the existence of the sympathy. Here it may be also proper to observe, that from the frequent and pointed references which I have made to the results obtained by Dr Beaumont, some of my readers have imagined that I claimed for him the merit of the original discovery of all the truths which his experiments tend to establish. Nothing, however, was farther from my intention, and accordingly on page 87 I speak distinctly of his having eagerly embraced the opportunity afforded him of “_testing the prevailing doctrines_” on digestion; and on page 93 and other places I state that the same results had _previously_ been arrived at by Tiedemann and other observers, but that the evidence in their favour adduced by Dr Beaumont was “more direct and incontrovertible,” and therefore more conclusive than their’s,--a position wholly at variance with any claim of _discovery_ on his part. Indeed, the utter