Chap. 3.] Forcing Pump with Air Vessel. 265

We have no idea that the inventor of the stomach pump was indebtedto Hudibras for the hint, yet that old warrior seems not only to have beena proper subject for its occasional application, but he appears to have hadsome notions that might eventually have led to it. Those readers whoare familiär with Butler’s account of him will remember that when he wasinsulted by Talgol the butcher, the knight, as he justly might,

.“ grew high in wroth,

And lifting hands and eyes up both,

Three times he smote on stomach stoutFrom whence at last these words broke out:*******

Nor all that farce that makes thee proud,

Because by bullocks ne’er withstood,

Shall save, or help thee to evadeThe hand of justice, or this blade.

Nor shall those words of venom base,

Which thou hast from their native placeThy stomach, pwmp'd to Hing on meGo unrevenged: * * * *

Thou down the same throat shall devour ’em,

Like tainted beef, and pay dear for ’em .”—Canto ii, Part I.

It was a common practice with the ancient Roman epicures to empty thestomach by an emetic before dinner. Had the application of the pumpfor such a purpose been then known, it would of course have been pre-ferred as the more agreeable and certain device of the two. But if theancients had no apparatus for withdrawing the contents of the stomach,they were not destitute of means for conveying nauseous or corrodingliquids into it. Pliny , in his Nat. Hist, xxx, 6. says such medicines wereswallowed “ through a pipe or tunnel” inserted into the mouth for thatpurpose.

The pump figured at No. 118 ejects water as a syringe and only when thepiston is forced down; but by the addition of what is called an air-vessel, the

stream from the discharg-ing pipe may be made con-tinuous: this vessel is clos-ed at its upper part, andopen at bottom, where it isconnected by screws to theforcing pipe directly overthe valve, as represented inthe annexed Illustration. Adischarging pipe may thenbe connected to the lowerpart of the vessel, or it maybe, as it often is, insertedthrough the top, in whichcase its lower end shouldextend nearly to the bottom.When by the descent of thepiston water is forced outNo. 120, Forcing Pump with Air-vessel. 0 f the Cylinder, part of it

enters the pipe, and part rushes past it and compresses the air confined inthe upper part of the vessel; and when the piston is raised to draw afresh portion into the cylinder, this air expands and drives out the waterthat compressed it and thus renders the stream constant. It will be per-ceived that the quantity of water raised is not increased by this arrange-

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