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HUNGER
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HUNGER and THIRST. These terms are used to See also:express See also:peculiar sensations which are produced by and give expression to See also:general wants of the See also:system, satisfied respectively by the ingestion of organic solids containing substances capable of acting as See also:food, and by See also:water or liquids and solids containing water. Hunger (a word See also:common to See also:Teutonic See also:languages) is a peculiarly indefinite sensation of craving or want which is referred to the See also:stomach, but with which is often combined, always indeed in its most pronounced stages, a general feeling of weakness or faintness. The earliest stages are unattended with suffering, and are characterized as " appetite for food." Hunger is normally appeased by the introduction of solid or semi-solid nutriment into the stomach, and it is probable that the almost immediate alleviation of the sensation in these circumstances is in See also:part due to a See also:local See also:influence, perhaps connected with a See also:free secretion of gastric juice. Essentially, however, the sensation of hunger is a See also:mere local expression of a general want, and this local expression ceases when the want is satisfied, even though no food be introduced into the stomach, the needs of the See also:economy being satisfied by the introduction of food through other channels, as, for example, when food which admits of being readily absorbed is injected into the large See also:intestine. Thirst (a word of Teutonic origin, Ger. Durst, Swed. and See also:Dan. torst, akin to the See also:Lat. torrere, to parch) is a peculiar sensation of dryness and See also:heat localized in the See also:tongue and See also:throat. Although thirst may be artificially produced by drying, as by the passage of a current of See also:air over the mucous membrane of the above parts, normally it depends upon an impoverishment of the system in water. And, when this impoverishment ceases, in whichever way this be effected, the sensation likewise ceases. The injection of water into the See also:blood, the stomach, or the large intestine appeases thirst, though no fluid is brought in contact with the part to which the sensation is referred. The sensations of hunger and thirst See also:lead us, or when urgent compel us, to take food and drink into the mouth. Once in the mouth, the entrance to the alimentary See also:canal, the food begins to undergo a See also:series of processes, the See also:object of which is to See also:extract from it as much as possible of its nutritive constituents. Food in the alimentary canal is, strictly speaking, outside the confines of the See also:body; as much so as the See also:fly grasped in the leaves of the insectivorous Dionea is outside of the plant itself. The See also:mechanical and chemical processes to which the food is subjected have their seat and conditions outside the body which it is destined to nourish, though unquestionably the body is no passive See also:agent, and innumerable glands come into See also:action to See also:supply the chemical agents which dissolve and render assimilable those constituents of the food capable of being absorbed into the organism, and of forming oa.rt and See also:parcel of its substance (see further under 1N ITTRITION). Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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