LECTURE ON THE STOMACH.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3608, 3 February 1883, Page 4

LECTURE ON THE STOMACH.

In the Bridgend Hall. Perth, an interesting lecture was delivered the other night by Dr. Trotter, of Perth, on "The (Stomach," illustrated by views from slides shown by the limelight. After describing- the nature and functions of the stomach, the lecturer went on to say that, like other patient and willing workers, it was badly treated, being, in fact, the worst-used orgau in the body. Every hort of mess and abomination was shoved into it, all of which it was expected to manufacture into nourishment, and never to get unfit for work. Requiring a temperature of about OS degrees for the proper performance of its functions, the tippler treated it to iced champagne at the freezing* point, and the tea-drinkers scalded it with their favorite beverage at 212 degrees, and almost boiled it alive ; the miss sweetened it with sweets and sugar, and the old wife poisoned it with camomile and epiinino ; the young man emptied into it enough soda and potash to convert him into soap—hard soap or soft soap, according* to the alkali he effects—in order to convince the world of his manliness ; the young lady dosed it with vinegar, to try to make her genteel : the poor man stuffed it with under-cooked bread hot from the baker's oven, and with overcooked beef boiled half a- dozen years ago ; the rich man crammed it with oysters, mites, and jumpers, all alive and kicking, and game so far gone with putrefaction that a pig would turn up his nose at it; and if the poor stomach rebelled under this extraordinary treatment every- villainous abomination invented or discovered from the creation till now was poured into it, and everything nauseous and disgusting that could be heard or thought of was wallowed with the insane idea of putting itright—exactly on the same principle that induced the pigwii'o to thrash her donkey because it was already so weak with abuse that it could not draw its load. About the drunkard's stomach—well, the drunkard seemed to ignore the existence or possession of one. But the drunkard had a stomach, and it should, the lecturer went on, be his object to show what it was like under a liberal application of alcohol. At this point the screen was made to show the stomach in its normal condition, again a representation was given of the bloodshot stomach, the stomach of the moderate drinker, the man who took his grog daily, but moderately, who supped his wine with his meals. The blood vessels of his stomach were enlarged and distended, and the red patches apparent might be either inflammation or the stains of alkanet logwood, from which they nuglit conclude that the wine he drank was port, so called: that the subject had drunk it while his stomach was empty, and that he had " kicked the bucket" almost immediately after. No. 3 slide represented the habitual drunkard's stomach, which besides a development of the former appearances, showed several blue spots like the grog blossoms sometimes placed on the druid_-d's nose. No. -1 was an advanced stage of the same business corroded with ulcers. No. b was taken from the stomach of a man who died suddenly after being on the spree for several days, and exhibited a high degree of inflammation. No. 6 was the cancerous stomach of an excessive drinker, a sea captain, and an habitual imbiber of undiluted spirits. Tire "blue stains might be supposed to represent the blue ruin he drank " after he found he was affected by cancer. No. 7 might be supposed to represent the stomach of the man who drank "fine old Irish whisky—ls years in bond," though probably not out of the still for so many days, the real stingo, wan-anted to peel the skin all the way down—a result wliich seemed to have been produced iv the present case. In tome parts of the country tlus "rale Irish" was a great favoiuito with hard drinkers, and was familiarly known as the "Foretaste of futurity'," probably a not inapt designation.