(seq. 27)

18

Introduction

Materia Alementaria

of vegitable aliments to be a process, very much resembling or the
same as fermentation, and as the product of fermentation
out of the body, is an acid, he concluded, it existed in a
larger quantity in the stomach, I need not trouble you
with arangements or processes to refute this doctrine. To
our Countryman Dr Bland of Virginia we are indebted
for the discovery of digestion, being carried on by the Gastric
Juice. This doctrine was afterwards taught in Europe by
Spallanzini and J. Hunter, the experiments of my injenious
and much lamented friend & pupil Dr Young made on the
Juice of Stomachs of many living animals, and never could
detect any thing like a vegitable acid, but in most cases
(but in most cases) a very small portion of an acid which
he afterwards found to be phosphoric, so far am I
therefore from believing with Dr Cullen that a vegitable, or
indeed any acid, exists in a perceptable quantity in a healthy
stomach, that I should want no stronger proof of disease,
were I certain of its presence, the experiments of Dr Hardies
and J. Hunter on the stomachs of various animals go also
to prove the truth of the above opinion, as they were never