Rumination.
2612. If the food, when received into the stomach, continue acid by virtue of its nature, or from not having been properly chewed and imbued with saliva and so neutralized, it is then homonymous with the gastric juice. The stomach therefore seeks to neutralize it, by restoring it again to the action of the saliva.
2613. Acid aliments cause vomiting. Grass which has not been masticated, and therefore enters acid or non-killed, and susceptible of fermentation, into the stomach, is regularly brought back into the mouth, and to the saliva, i. e. is ruminated or rechewed.
2614. Rumination is a regular act of vomiting, which has originated from the antagonism of the saliva and gastric juice and from the acid nature of the morsel.
b. Intestinal Digestion.
2615. The intestinal digestion is the perfect chemical process taken up along with all its moments into the animal.
Gastric Digestion.
2616. The stomach exercises by means of the spleen the oxydizing process of the intestine, the solvent function, and thus the action of the water. The gastric juice is related to the food, like water is to earth. The gastric digestion is liquefaction, unto which oxydation makes the preliminary step.
2617. Through the process of liquefaction, the poles are only potentially augmented, but are not dissevered, nor new substances formed. The gastric digestion creates no new bodies, but only mixes the old in the most homogeneous and intimate manner with each other.
2618. The gastric digestion is an animal process of fermentation. In deranged states of the stomach there is therefore a propensity to acid eructation, development of carbonic acid, and even formation of sugar.