Page:Hatha yoga - or the yogi philosophy of physical well-being, with numberous excercises.djvu/34

34 building up, repairing, strengthening and adding to all the parts and organs.

The "inside" of the stomach is covered with a lining of delicate mucous membrane, which is filled with minute glands, all of which open into the stomach and around which is a very fine network of minute blood-vessels with remarkably thin walls, from which is manufactured, or secreted, that wonderful fluid, the gastric juice. The gastric juice is a powerful liquid acting as a solvent upon what is called the nitrogenous portions of the food. It also acts upon the sugar or glucose which has been manufactured from the starchy food by the saliva, as above described. It is a bitter sort of liquid, containing a chemical product called pepsin, which is its active agent and which plays a most important part in the digestion of the food.

In a normal, healthy person the stomach manufactures or secretes about one gallon of gastric juice in twenty-four hours, and uses same in the process of digestion of the food. When the food reaches the stomach the little glands, before mentioned, pour out a sufficient supply of the gastric juice, which mixes up with the mass of food in the stomach. Then the stomach sets up sort of a churning motion, which moves the pulpy food round and round, from end to end, from side to side, twisting and turning it, churning and kneading it, until the gastric juice penetrates every part of the mass and is well mixed up into it. The Instinctive Mind does some wonderful work in the stomach movements and works like a well oiled machine.

And if the stomach has been treated to properly