Once in the _oesophagus_ (you remember this is the name of the tube
which leads to the stomach), the mouthful of food has nothing to do but
to proceed on its way. All along this tube there is a succession
of small elastic rings, [Footnote: Properly, _contractile circular
fibres_.] which contract behind the food to force it forward, and
widen before it to give it free passage. They thus propel it forward,
one after another, till it reaches the entrance to the stomach, into
which the last ring pushes it, closing upon it at the same time.
Have you ever observed a worm or a leech in motion? You see a successive
swelling up of the whole surface of its body, as the creature gradually
pushes forward, just as if there was something in its inside rolling
along from the tail to the head. Such is precisely the appearance which
the _oesophagus_ would present to you, as the food passes down it, if
you had the opportunity of seeing it in action; and this has been called
_the vermicular movement_, in consequence of its resemblance to the
movement of a worm.
Here I wish to draw your attention to the very important fact, that
this movement is in one respect of a quite different nature from that
of your thumb when you take hold of a bit of bread, or that of your
jaw when you bite with your teeth, or of your tongue, &c., when you
swallow. All these actions belong to yourself, to a certain extent;
they are voluntary, and under your own guidance; that is, you may
perform them or not, as you choose. There is a constant connexion
between you and them, and you knew what I meant at once as I named
each of them in succession. But in speaking of this other movement we
enter upon another world, of which you know nothing. Here is the black
hole of which I spoke. The little rings of the _oesophagus_ perform
their work by themselves, and you have no power in the matter. Not
only do they move independently of you, but were you to take it into
your head to stop them, it would be about as wise a proceeding as if
you were to talk to them. We will speak hereafter, in another place,
of these impertinent servants, who do not recognise your authority,
and with whom we shall have constantly to do, throughout what remains
to be said on the subject of eating. The truth is, your body is like
a little kingdom, of which you have to be the queen, but queen of the
frontiers only. The arms, the legs, the lips, the eyelids, all the
exterior parts, are your very humble servants; at your slightest bidding
they move or keep still: your will is their law. But in the interior
you are quite unknown. There, there is a little republic to itself,
ruling itself independently of your orders, which it would laugh at,
if you attempted to issue them.
This republic, to make use of another metaphor, is the kitchen of the
body. It is there they make blood, as they know how; putting it to all
sorts of uses for your advantage, it is true, but without your consent.
You are in the position of the lady of a house whose servants have
shut the door of the kitchen in her face that they may carry on their
business after their own fashion, leaving only the housemaid and
coachman at her command. It may be humiliating, perhaps, to be thus
only partially mistress at home; but what can you do, my little
demi-queen? I will tell you: make up your mind to govern the subjects
under your orders as wisely as possible; and, as to the rest, be content
with the only resource left you: viz., that of looking in at the window
of the kitchen to see what goes on there!
The stomach is the head cook: the president of the internal republic.
He has charge of the stoves; the whole weight of affairs is on his
hands, and he provides for the interests of all. Aesop taught us this,
long ago, in his fable of "The Belly and Members." [Footnote: La
Fontaine's translation is quoted in the French original, where the
name of the fable is "_Messer Gaster_," a more correct title than our
own. _Gaster_ is a Greek word signifying stomach; and it is strictly
_the stomach_ which is _meant_ in the fable. From this comes, too, the
medical term _gastritis_, the name of a disease of the stomach.--TR.] It
is a very good fable, and was wisely appealed to once by a Roman Consul
to appease a disturbance in the State. But the application was not quite
fair in one respect; and since I have started the subject, I will
satisfy myself by explaining to you where it was wrong. The time will
not be wasted, for this fable has furnished information to a great many
people about the economy of their insides, and possibly to you; and I
should like you to know the exact truth of all the particulars alluded
to. Whether Aesop understood them all, I cannot pretend to say; but the
application by the old Roman to the quarrel between the big-wig senators
and the people was on one point decidedly unjust; for there was, as far
as facts are concerned, something to be said on behalf of the stomach,
which Consul Menenius seems not to have thought of.
When you come to this part of the Roman history you will learn that
the Roman Senate was a large and fat stomach, which did, it is true,
furnish good nourishment to the other members of the State, but kept
the best share for itself. We may say this now without risk of offence,
it having been dead for so long a time. Our stomach is the leanest,
slightest, frailest part of our body. It is master in the sense in
which it is said in the Gospel, "Let him that is first among you be
the servant of the others." It receives everything, but it gives
everything back, and keeps nothing, or almost nothing, for itself.
Between ourselves, Consul Menenius, the advocate of the Senate, had
no business to talk to the poor wretches at Rome of any comparison
between their government and so careful an administrator of the public
good as a human stomach. He should have taken his subject of comparison
from the families of geese or ducks--animals which have no teeth. These
have strong, well-grown stomachs--true Roman senators--whose stoutness
is in proportion to the work given them to do. But man provides his
with work already prepared by chewing, supposing him to have had the
sense to chew it, of course. It was not from a comparison with man,
therefore, that Menenius ought to have got his boasted apologue, which
was but a poor jest on the subject.
You did not expect, my dear, to come in for a lesson on Roman History
in a discussion on the stomach. But the study of nature is connected
with everything else, though without appearing to be so, and I was not
sorry to give you, incidentally, this proof of the unexpected light
which it throws, as we go along, upon a thousand questions which appear
perfectly foreign to it. Look, for example, at this old fable cited
by Menenius. For the two thousand years and upwards that it has been
in circulation, troops of historians, poets, orators, and writers of
all kinds, have passed it forward from one to the other, without having
troubled themselves to investigate the laws of nature in connection
with the stomach; therefore, not one, that I am aware of, has observed
this small error, so trifling in appearance, so important in reality,
which nevertheless is obvious to the first young naturalist who thinks
the matter over.
But enough of the Romans. Let us return to our master--the head cook,
if you choose to call him so.
I was telling you just now that he managed the stoves, and you may
have thought that I was merely using similes, as I am apt to do. But
not so: it is quite true that he cooks; and so now tell me, if you
can, whence he gets his fire to cook with, or rather, to speak more
correctly, who gives it to him?
Now you are quite puzzled, so I must help you out.
In the mansion we were talking about some time ago, to whom would anyone
who wanted to light a fire, apply for wood?
I think you can answer this yourself, for you cannot have forgotten
our famous steward, who gives everything to everybody. But, you will
wonder, I dare say, how the blood can carry wood in his pockets.
Wood? Ay, and real wood too, as we shall soon see: but it is not wood
we are talking about now. The blood has something more to the purpose
than wood in his pockets, for he has heat ready made. So when the
stomach wishes to set to work, it appeals to the blood, which comes
running from all parts of the body, and heats it so effectually that
everything within is really and actually cooked. This is why one feels
a sort of slight shudder down the back when the stomach has a great
deal to do at once, for the blood being called for in a hurry, comes
rushing along in great gushes, and carries with it the heat from the
other parts of the body.
It is for this reason, too, that it is so dangerous to bathe when the
stomach is at work cooking, because the cold of the water drives
suddenly back all the blood which has accumulated around the little
saucepan, and this causes such a shock in the body that people often
die of it.
Do not ask me, to-day, where this heat of the blood comes from; we
will speak of that hereafter. But I may tell you at once that our dear
steward is not a bit cleverer in this matter than other people, and
obtains his heat, like the humblest mortal, by burning his wood. Do
not puzzle yourself to find out how. Enough that he burns it as we do,
and by a similar process.
Well, in one way or another, the master cook has his fire at command.
You know also, already, what it is he has to get cooked; namely, the
pulpy stew, which has begun in the mouth by chewing, and which it is
his business now to finish perfectly. Now see what a cook does who has
got her stew over the fire. She turns and turns it again and again,
and shakes the saucepan from time to time, that the ingredients may
be more thoroughly mixed up together; and this is precisely what is
done by the stomach; for all the time that the cooking is going on,
he swells and contracts himself alternately, after the fashion of those
rings of the _oesophagus_ we were talking about, tossing and tumbling
the food from one side to another, so as to knead it, as it were.
Again, the cook adds water to her stew from time to time to keep it
moist; and so the stomach pours constantly upon his stew a liquid,
which contains a great deal of water, and which flows in from a quantity
of little holes, sunk in his delicate coats.
What more?
The cook puts in a little salt: and this the stomach takes care not
to forget either, for he is a cook who understands his business. In
the liquid of which I am speaking, there is, if not exactly salt as
one sees it at table, at all events the most active part of salt, that
which possesses in the highest degree the property of reducing
everything we eat to a paste; and this is the real reason why we find
all food so insipid which has not been seasoned with salt. As salt
contains a principle essential to the work to be done by the stomach,
some method had to be devised to induce us to provide him with it, and
this method the porter up above has hit upon. He makes a face if we
offer him anything without a little salt on it, as much as to say--"How
can you expect them to cook you properly down below, my good friend,
if you don't bring them proper materials?"
Upon which hint men have always acted from the beginning; and as far
as we can trace history back, we find them mixing salt with their food,
though without knowing the real reason why. It is the same, too, with
the lower animals. They know nothing of the matter either, but this
does not prevent their having a natural relish for salt, as any one
will tell you who has the charge of cattle; for their stomachs require
for their cooking the very same seasoning as our own, and therefore
their porter above has received the same orders.
Salt is not the only thing, however, that exists in that liquid in the
stomach. Learned men, after making minute researches, have found in
it another equally powerful material, which is also found in milk.
Therefore cheese, which contains this material as well as salt, is
quite in its place at the end of dinner. It furnishes reinforcements
for the stomach in cooking, and this is why you so often hear people
say that a little cheese helps the digestion.
The _digestion_! Yes, that is the word I ought to have begun with.
It is the real name of all this cooking; an operation after which I
would defy you to recognise the nice little cakes you have eaten, any
better than your mamma can trace her pretty rosy-cheeked apples in the
jelly which she left on the fire two hours ago. The stomach, as you
see, is very busy quite as long a time as that, and if we have to be
very careful (as I pointed out before) not to disturb him too suddenly
in his work after dinner, it is also important that we should not,
while at dinner, give him more work to do than he is capable of doing.
Although he is the master, he is but a puny fellow, as I have already
pointed out; nevertheless, he works conscientiously, because he knows
that the life of the whole body depends upon his exertions. Some people
even say that in spite of his leanness he strips himself, at each
digestion, of his interior skin, which he sacrifices to his work, and
the fragments of which tend to increase and improve the stew which is
entrusted to his care. Think of this, my dear, whenever a greedy fit
comes over you, and recollect that such a disinterested public
functionary deserves some consideration. Besides, there is serious
danger, quite apart from any question of injustice, in overwhelming
him with work. If your legs are wearied out, you have it in your power
to lie in bed. If your arm is in pain, you can keep it at rest. But
your stomach is like those poor people who have to support their
families by the labor of each day. He, too, labors for others: he has
no right to rest, no right to be ill, therefore; and when he begins
to fail, woe betide you--you will have enough of it.
Children who have learnt nothing may laugh at all this, but you, my
dear, are beginning to know something, and "science constrains,"
_i.e._ it has its claims and requirements. It requires you, to-day, not
to be greedy, to-morrow, something else, and so on, continually, until
you have become quite reasonable and wise. I am sorry for you if this
vexes you, but it was your own wish to learn, and _science constrains_.
Indeed, I will whisper to you in confidence that this is the best excuse
people who are unwilling to learn have to offer for refusing. They do
not know what learning may lead to, and what a pity it would be if they
could no longer be greedy, or ill-natured, or selfish. What would become
of us all in such a case?