“I have at length found time to examine the Grand Lama’s ordure, and write to say that I find nothing at all remarkable in it. He had been feeding on a farinaceous diet, for I found by the microscope a large amount of undigested starch in the field, the presence of which I verified by the usual iodine test, which gave an abundant reaction.
“There was also present much cellulose, or what appeared to be cellulose, from which I infer that the flour used (which was that of wheat) was of a coarse quality, and probably not made in Minnesota.
“A slight reaction for biliary matter seemed to show that there was no obstruction of the bile ducts. These tests about used up the four very small pills of the Lama’s ordure.
“Very respectfully and sincerely yours,
(Signed) “W. M. Mew.”
IX.
THE STERCORANISTES.
That Christian polemics have not been entirely free from such ideas may be shown satisfactorily to any one having the leisure to examine the various phases of the discussion upon the doctrine of the Eucharist.
The word “stercoranistes,” or “stercorarians,” is not to be found in the last edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica; but in the edition of 1841 the definition of the word is as follows: “Stercorarians, or Stercoranistes, formed from stercus, ‘dung,’ a name which those of the Romish church originally gave to such as held that the host was liable to digestion and all its consequences, like other food.” This definition was copied verbatim in Rees’s Cyclopædia of Arts, Sciences, and Literature, Philadelphia.
The dispute upon “Stercoranisme” began in 831, upon the appearance of a theological treatise by a monk named Paschasius Radbert.—(See the “Institutes of Ecclesiastical History,” John Lawrence von Mosheim, translated by John Murdock, D.D., New Haven, 1832, vol. ii. p. 104 et seq.)