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QVEST. VIII. Whither the vpper mouth of the stomacke be the seate of Appetite.
SEeing the liue-tide of euery creature is inconstant, and like a poaste pas∣seth swiftly away, because of the continuall effluxion or expence of the threefold substance wherein it consisteth, Nature being vigilant and care∣full about her owne preseruation, endeuoureth continually to make vp the breach by Respiration and Nourishment. By respiration the spirituous, by nourishment the fleshy and solide substaunce is restored. And hence it is that our nou∣rishment is threefold, Aer, meate, and drinke. But because there can be no nourishment without Appetite, nature hath dispensed to euery part a certaine desire, whereby as by goades they are pricked forward to draw and sucke into themselues conuenient and fami∣liar Aliment. But this desire in the particular parts of the body is without sense, for they feele not neyther perceiue when they draw or sucke such conuenient aliment. Wherefore, least the parts shoulde pine away when they are exhausted and as it were hunger-starued, nature hath framed one part of exquisite and perfect sense, which alone fore-apprehending the suction and so the want of the rest, should stirre vp the creature to prouide and cooke their nourishment for them. For if the sense of this suction or traction were in euery part, then in the time of affamishment or thirst they would perpetually languish, & so the crea∣ture leade his life in a perpetuall disease.
This part so by nature set out, is the vppermost mouth of the stomacke, which the an∣cient Graecians as Galen witnesseth, called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉. And all men doe concurre, that in it the Animall appetite and hunger, which is nothing else but a sense of suction, haue their pecu∣liar residence. And this sense is exhibited in this place by two notable nerues called Sto∣machici, or the Stomacke Nerues arising from the sixt paire or coniungation of the Braine.
But after what manner this Animall appetite is stirred vp, Galen hath elegantly taught vs in his first Booke of the causes of Symptoms. For the better vnderstanding of which place, these things are first to be obserued, that the animall appetite is double; one naturall, an∣other depraued: to the first, these fiue signes or symptoms must necessarily concurre: first, an exhaustion or deepe expence of the substance of the parts, next there must bee in the same parts a suction or traction; for the exhausted parts do draw from their next neighbors and those from others, till by continuation it do come to some extreame; which extreame is the vpper mouth of the stomacke where the traction ceaseth: from this traction ariseth the third signe, which is a divulsion or kinde of violence offered to the mouth of the Sto∣macke, which divulsion or violence striketh the nerue, whence commeth the sense, and from the sense the appetite.
In the depraued appetite, the same order and degrees of Symptoms are not obserued. For in the disease called Boulimos, there is hunger without appetite, and in the Dog-appe∣tite, there is appetite without hunger. In the Boulimos all the parts being exhausted or hun∣ger-bit, do draw from the stomacke, which on euery hand is torne and as it weee laun∣ced, yet doth not that divulsion strike the sense, and so no appetite followeth; in the mean time the other parts being defrauded of their aliment, doe wast away and consume. The cause of this insensibility is the refrigeration of the nerue, the obstruction of the same, and the exolution or fainting away of the appetitiue Faculty.
On the contrary, in the Dogge-appetite there is no Inanition or emptinesse of the parts, but an exquisite sense of suction, by reason of a coole and sowre humor there impa∣cted, and it is cured Theorexi, that is, by drinking of wine as Hippocrates witnesseth. Hence therefore it is manifest, that the animall appetite is stirred vp in the mouth of the stomack, which is endued with so exquisite sense, that it is called the Organ or instrument of touch∣ing by Hippocrates in his Booke of the Instruments of smelling.
There remaineth yet one scruple, how the appetitiue faculty standing in reference to the sensitiue, should haue his seate in the mouth of the stomacke, seeing it is of al hands deter∣mined that the seate of all the animall faculties is in the braine. The answere is easie and at hand, to wit, that the faculty it selfe is in the braine, but the worke, efficacy, and action thereof in the stomacke. So the faculty of seeing is in the braine, but the sight is accompli∣shed in the eye. The moouing Faculty is likewise in the braine, yet is the Muscle the im∣mediate organ of voluntary motion.