Some physiologists will have it that the stomach is a mill;öothers, that it is a fermenting vat;öothers again that it is a stew-pan;öbut in my view of the matter, it is neither a mill, a fermenting vat, nor a stew-panöbut a stomach, gentlemen, a stomach.

-Hunter,William
Quoted in  J  A Paris  A  Treatise on Diet (1824), epigraph, from a note made by Hunter on one of his lectures.