Part 20

5. Dogs fed with cheese alone, or hard eggs, lived for a long time; but they became feeble and lost their hair.

6. Rodent animals will live a very long time on muscular substances.

7. After an animal has been fed for a long period on one kind of aliment, which, if continued, will not support life, allowing it the former customary food will not save it: he will eat eagerly, but will die as soon as if he had continued to be restricted to the article of food which was first given him.

Dr. Paris is of opinion that all that these experiments tend to prove is, that animals cannot exist upon highly-concentrated aliment. Horses fed on concentrated aliment are liable to various disorders, originating from diseased action of the stomach and liver, broken wind, staggers, blindness, &c.

Professor Muller has given an excellent definition of indigestion. "It is a state of the digestive organs in which either they do not secrete the fluid destined for the solution of the aliment, or they are in such a condition of irritability or atony, that by the mechanical irritation of the food, painful sensations and irregular motions are exerted."

But the most curious experiments made on the changes which the food undergoes in the stomach, according to the greater or lesser facility with which it is digested, were those of Dr. Beaumont. This physiologist had the rare opportunity of investigating this subject in a patient of the name of St. Martin, who came under his care in consequence of a gun-shot wound, which left a considerable opening in the stomach, which, when empty, could be explored to the depth of five or six inches by artificial distention. The food and the drink could in this manner be seen to enter it. This enabled him to keep an interesting journal and table, showing the time required for the digestion of different kinds of food, which were taken with bread or vegetables, or both. The following are some of his interesting observations:

Experiment 33. At 1 o'clock St. Martin dined on roast beef, bread, and potatoes--in half an hour examined the contents of the stomach, found what he had eaten reduced to a mass resembling thick porridge. At 2 o'clock, nearly all chymified--a few distinct particles of food still to be seen. At half-past four, chymification complete. At 6 o'clock nothing in the stomach but a little gastric juice tinged with bile.

Ex. 42. At 8 a.m., breakfast of three hard-boiled eggs, pancakes, and coffee. At half-past eight, found a heterogenous mixture of the articles slightly digested. At a quarter-past ten, no part of breakfast could be seen.

Ex. 43. At 2 o'clock same day, dined on roast pig and vegetables. At 3 they were chymified; and at half-past four nothing remained but a little gastric juice.

Ex. 18, in a third series. At half-past eight a.m., two drams of fresh fried sausage, in a fine muslin bag, were suspended in the stomach of St. Martin, who immediately afterwards breakfasted on the same kind of sausage, and a piece of broiled mutton, wheaten bread, and a pint of coffee. At half-past eleven, stomach half empty, contents of bag about half diminished. At 2 o'clock p.m., stomach empty and clean, contents of bag all gone with the exception of fifteen grains, consisting of small pieces of cartilaginous and membranous fibres, and the spices of the sausage, which last weighed six grains.

As I have elsewhere observed, various are the theories that have been entertained in regard to digestion, but the experiments of Dr. Beaumont seem to have proved beyond a doubt, that this operation is due to the action of the gastric juice, with which he was enabled to produce artificial digestion. Having obtained one ounce of this solvent from the stomach of his patient, he put into it a solid piece of recently-boiled beef, weighing three drams, and placed the vessel that contained it in a water bath heated to 100 deg. In forty minutes digestion had commenced on the surface of the meat; in fifty minutes, the fluid was quite opake and cloudy, the external texture began to separate and become loose; in sixty minutes, chyme began to form. At 1 p.m. (two hours after the commencement of the experiment), the cellular substance was destroyed, the muscular fibres loose and floating about in fine small threads very tender and soft. In six hours they were nearly all digested--a few fibres only remaining. After the lapse of ten hours, every part of the meat was completely digested. The artificial digestion by these experiments appears to be but little slower than the natural process--they also demonstrate the influence of the temperature, and the quantity of the solvent secretion. Having obtained from St. Martin two ounces of gastric juice, he divided this quantity into two equal portions, and laid in each an equal quantity of masticated roast beef. One he placed in a water bath at the temperature of 99 deg. Farh.--and left the other exposed to the open air at the temperature of 34 deg.; a third similar portion of meat he kept in a phial, with an ounce of cold water. An hour after the commencement of the experiment, St. Martin had finished his breakfast, which consisted of the same meat with biscuit, butter, and coffee. Two hours after the meat had been put into the phial, the portion in the warm gastric juice was as far advanced in chymification as the food in the stomach; the meat in the cold gastric juice was less acted on, and that in the cold water only slightly macerated. In two hours and forty-five minutes from the time that the experiment was begun, the food in the stomach was completely digested, the stomach empty, while even at the end of six hours the meat in the gastric juice was only half digested. Dr. Beaumont, therefore, having procured 12 drams of fresh gastric juice, added now a portion to each of the phials containing meat and gastric juice, and to a portion of the half-digested food which he had withdrawn from the stomach two hours after the commencement of the experiment, and which had not advanced towards solution. After eight hours' maceration, the portions of meat in the cold gastric juice, and in the cold water, were little changed, but, from the time of the addition of the fresh gastric juice, digestion went on rapidly in the other phials, which were kept at the proper heat, and at the end of 24 hours, the meat which had been withdrawn from the stomach after digestion had commenced, were, with the exception of a piece of meat that had not been masticated, converted into a thickish pulpy mass of a reddish-brown colour: the meat in the warm gastric juice was also digested, though less perfectly, while that in the cold gastric juice was scarcely more acted on than the meat in the water, which was merely macerated. Dr. Beaumont now exposed these two phials containing the meat in cold gastric juice, and meat in water, to the heat of the water bath for 24 hours, and the gastric juice, which when cold had no power on the meat, now digested it; while the meat in the water underwent no change, except that towards the end of the experiment, putrefaction had commenced. The antiseptic properties of the gastric juice were fully demonstrated in several other experiments.

Various philosophers, in idle disquisitions, have endeavoured by the most absurd hypotheses to determine what is the natural food of man, and to show that he is not created omnivorous. The comparison between our species and animals confutes these vain theories. The masticatory and digestive organization of man assigns to him an intermediate rank between carnivorous and herbivorous creatures. The teeth may be said by their figure and construction to bear a relation with our natural food. The teeth of flesh-eating animals rise in sharp prominences to seize and lacerate their prey, and those of the lower jaw shut within those of the superior one. The herbivorous animals are not armed with these formidable weapons, but have broad flat surfaces with intermixed plates of enamel, that they should wear less rapidly in the constant labour of grinding and triturating. In the carnivorous, the jaws can only move backward and forward; in the herbivorous their motion is lateral, as observed in the cow when chewing her cud. Beasts of prey tear and swallow their food in masses, while in others it undergoes a careful communition before it is transmitted to the stomach. The teeth of man only resemble those of carnivorous animals by their enamel being confined to their external surface, while in the freedom of the motion of the jaws from side to side they partake of the conformation of the herbivorous. The teeth and jaws of man are in all respects more similar to those of monkeys than any other animals; only in some of the simiae the canine teeth are much longer and stronger, and denote a carnivorous propensity.

It is to the abuse of this omnivorous faculty that Providence has bestowed upon mankind, that we owe many of the diseases under which our species labours. "Multos morbos, multa fercula fecerunt," sayeth Seneca; yet we are far more temperate in the present age than the ancients during the period of their boasted high civilization and prosperity. Their excesses must have been of the most disgusting nature, since, to indulge more easily in their gluttonous propensities, they had recourse to emetics both before and after their meals. "Vomunt ut edant, edunt ut vomunt, et epulas quas toto orbe conquirunt nec concoquere dignantur," was the reproach of the above-quoted philosopher. Suetonius and Dion Cassius give Vitellius the credit of having introduced this revolting custom into fashion; and splendid vessels for the purpose were introduced in their feasts. Martial alludes to it in the following lines:

Nec coenat prius, aut recumbit, ante Quam septem vomuit meri deunces.

And Juvenal tells us that the bath was polluted by this incredible act of bestiality,--

Et crudum pavonem in balnea portas.

The sums expended by the ancients on their table exceed all belief. Vitellius expended for that purpose upwards of 3200l. daily, and some of his repasts cost 40,000l. At one of them, according to Suetonius, 7000 birds and 2000 fishes were served up. Aelius Verus laid out 600,000 sestertii on one meal; and some of the dishes of Heliogabalus cost about 4000l. of our money. The excesses of this monster were such, that Herodianus affirms that he wanted to ascertain, not only the flavour of human flesh, but of the most disgusting and nameless substances. The freaks related of this emperor are scarcely credible; but his gastronomic profusion may be easily conceived when we find that his very mats were made with the down of hares or soft feathers found under the wings of partridges! When such ideas of enjoyment prevailed, can we wonder that Philoxenus should have wished that he had the throat of a crane, that he might prolong the delights of eating!

Our early ancestors were remarkable for their frugality, and it is supposed that luxurious, or, at least, full living was introduced by the Danes: it has been even asserted that the verb gormandize was derived from Gormond, a Danish king, who was persuaded by Alfred to be baptized. Erasmus observed that the English were particularly fond of good fare. William the Conqueror, and Rufus, were in the habit of giving most splendid entertainments; and the former monarch was such an irascible epicure, that, upon one occasion, an underdone crane having been served up by the master of the cury, he would have knocked him down but for the timely interference of his dapifer, or purveyor of the mouth. This office of dapifer, with that of lardrenius, magnus coquus, coquorum prepositus, and coquus regius, were high dignitaries in those days. Cardinal Otto, the pope's legate, being at Oxford in 1238, his brother was his magister coquorum; and the reasons assigned for his holding that office were his brother's suspicious fears "ne procuraretur aliquid venenosum, quod valde timebat legatus." These officers were not unfrequently clergymen, who were elevated to the bench for their valuable services.

Whatever barbarity the ancients may have shown in preparing their dainty dishes, none could have surpassed in refinement of cruelty. Their method of roasting and eating a goose alive, is thus directed: "Take a goose or a duck, or some such lively creature, (but the goose is best of all for the purpose,) pull off all her feathers, only the head and neck must be spared; then make a fire round about her, not too close to her, that the smoke do not choke her, and that the fire may not burn her too soon, nor too far off, that she may not escape the fire; within the circle of the fire, let there be small cups and pots full of water, wherein salt and honey are mingled, and let there be set also chargers full of sodden apples, cut into small pieces in the dish. The goose must be all larded and basted over with butter, to make her the more fit to be eaten, and may roast the better. Put the fire about her but do not make too much haste, when as you see her begin to roast; for by walking about, and flying here and there, being cooped in by the fire that stops her way out, the unscared goose is kept in; she will fall to drink the water to quench her thirst and cool her heart, and all her body, and the apple sauce will cleanse and empty her, and when she wasteth, and consumes inwardly, always wet her head and heart with a wet sponge, and when you see her giddy with running and begin to stumble, her heart wants moisture, and she is roasted enough. Take her up and set her before your guest, and she will cry as you cut off any part from her, and will be almost eaten up before she is dead. It is mighty pleasant to behold."

Our forefathers were most ingenious in these diabolical fancies, we find in Portar's Magick the way how to persuade a goose to roast herself if you have a lack of cooks.

The heroic conduct of French cooks has been recorded in history, and compared with the noble devotion of the ancients. Vatel, maitre d'hotel of Louis XIV., put an end to his wretched existence in consequence of fish not having arrived in time for dinner. On this sad event being reported to his sovereign, he both praised and blamed his courage; and, to use the words of Madame de Sevigne, he perished "a force d'avoir de l'honneur a sa maniere; on loua fort et l'on blama son courage." It is strange that Napoleon should have used the very same expressions when speaking of one of his most distinguished generals. In more modern times we have heard of persons who expected that clerical functions should be combined with various lay duties, as appears by the following curious advertisement in a late paper:

"Wanted, for a family who have bad health, a sober, steady person, in the capacity of doctor, surgeon, apothecary, and man-midwife. He must occasionally act as butler, and dress hair and wigs. He will be required sometimes to read prayers, and to preach a sermon every Sunday. A good salary will be given." This was certainly an economical speculation for the use of soul and body.

Cooks have sometimes been obliged to resort to pious frauds; and it is related of our Richard Coeur de Lion, that, being very ill during the holy wars, he took a strange fancy for a bit of pork, but, as no pig could be procured, a plump Saracen child was roasted as a substitute; and it was remarked that Richard was ever after partial to pork.

There is little doubt but that our forefathers were harder livers than the present generation: even within the memory of man, drinking to excess is a vice seldom observed, excepting in some individuals belonging to the old school. The hours of refection have been singularly altered; and while our fashionable circles seldom sit down to table before eight o'clock in the evening, we find in olden chronicles that even royalty was used to dine at nine in the morning, more especially upon the Continent. In the Heptaemeron of the Queen of Navarre we find an account of the manner of spending the day:

"As soon as the morning rose, they went to the chamber of Madame Oysille, whom they found already at her prayers; and when they had heard during a good hour her lecture, and then the mass, they went to dine at ten o'clock, and afterwards each privately retired to his room, but did not fail at noon to meet in the meadow. Vespers heard, they went to supper; and after having played a thousand sports in the meadow they retired to bed."

During the reign of Charles V. of France, the court dined at ten, supped at seven, and retired to rest at nine. Holinshed gives the following curious description of our early diet: "Our tables are oftentimes more plentifully garnished than those of other nations, and this trade has continued with us since the very beginning; for, before the Romans found out and knew the way into our country, our predecessors fed largely upon flesh and milk, whereof there was great abundance in this isle, because they applied their chief studies unto pasturage and feeding.

"In Scotland, likewise, they have given themselves unto very ample and large diet, wherein as for some respect nature doth make them equal with us, so otherwise they far exceed us in over much and distemperate gormandize, and so engross their bodies, that divers of them do oft become unapt to any other purpose than to spend their time in large tabling and belly cheer. In old times these North Britons did give themselves universally to great abstinence; and in time of war their soldiers would often feed but once, or twice at the most, in two or three days, especially if they held themselves in secret, or could have no issue out of their bogs and morasses, through the presence of an enemy; and in this distress they used to eat a certain kind of confection, whereof so much as a bean would qualify their hunger above common expectation. In those days, also, it was taken for a great offence over all to eat either goose, hare, or hen, because of a certain superstitious opinion which they had conceived of these three creatures. Amongst other things, baked meats, dishes never before this man's (James I.) days seen in Scotland, were generally so provided for by virtue of this act, that it was not lawful for any to eat of the same under the degree of a gentleman, and those only but on high and festival days. In number of dishes and changes of meat, the nobility of England (whose cooks are for the most part musical-headed Frenchmen and strangers) do most exceed; sith there is no day in manner that passeth over their heads, wherein they have not only beef, mutton, veal, lamb, kid, pork, cony, capon, pig, or so many of these as the season yieldeth, but also some portion of the red and fallow deer, beside great variety of fish and wild fowl, and thereto sundry other delicates, wherein the sweet hand of the seafaring Portingale is not wanting; so that for a man to dine with one of them, and to taste of every dish that standeth before him, is rather to yield unto a conspiracy, with a great deal of meat for the speedy suppression of natural health, than the use of a necessary mean to satisfy himself with a competent repast, to sustain his body withal. The chief part, likewise, of their daily provision is brought in before them commonly in silver vessels, if they be of the degree of barons, bishops, and upwards, and placed upon their tables; whereof when they have taken what it pleaseth them, the rest is reserved, and afterwards sent down to their serving-men and waiters.

"The gentlemen and merchants keep much about one rate, and each of them contenteth himself with four, five, or six dishes, when they have but small resort; or, peradventure, with one or two, or three at the most, when they have no strangers. And yet their servants have their ordinary diet assigned, besides such as is left at their masters' boards, and not appointed to be brought thither the second time, which, nevertheless, is often seen, generally in venison, lamb, or some especial dish whereon the merchantman himself liketh to feed when it is cold.