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BOOK THREE
PART 8
[p. 269]being any kind of pull towards the mouth. For, although the swallowing of food is ordinarily preceded by a feeling of desire on the part of the stomach, there is in the case of vomiting no corresponding desire from the mouth-parts for the experience; the two are opposite dispositions of the stomach itself; it yearns after and tends towards what is advantageous and proper to it, it loathes and rids itself of what is foreign. Thus the actual process of swallowing occurs very quickly in those who have a good appetite for such foods as are proper to the stomach; this organ obviously draws them in and down before they are masticated; whereas in the case of those who are forced to take a medicinal draught or who take food as medicine, the swallowing of these articles is accomplished with distress and difficulty.
From what has been said, then, it is clear that the inner coat of the stomach (that containing longitudinal fibres) exists for the purpose of exerting a pull the from to stomach, and that it is only in deglutition that it is active, whereas the external coat, which contains transverse fibres, has been so constituted in order that it may contract upon its contents and propel them forward; this coat furthermore, functions in vomiting no less than in swallowing. The truth of my statement is also borne out by what happens in the channae and synodonts
The channa is a kind of sea-perch; "a species of Serranus, either S. scriba or S. cabrilla" (D'Arcy W. Thompson). cf. Aristotle's Nat. Hist. (D'Arcy Thompson's edition, Oxford, 1910), IV., xi., 538 A, 20. The syndont "is not to be identified with certainty, but is supposed to be Dentex vulgaris," that is, an edible Mediterranean perch. "It is not the stomach," adds Prof. Thompson, "but the air-bladder that gets everted and hangs out of the mouth in fishes, espceially when they are hauled in from a considerable depth." cf. H.A., VIII., ii., 591 B, 5.
; the stomachs of these animals are sometimes found in their mouths, as also Aristotle writes in his History
