Note 33 — Chapter V · THEORY AND LAWS OF DIGESTION.

The inferences are given in Dr Beaumont’s own words, and the italics also are his. It is needless to say that Dr Beaumont does not present these inferences as discoveries. Most of them were known before; but he has the merit of adding greatly to the strength of the evidence on which they rest, and of substituting certainty for doubt in many instances. The very title of “Inferences” which he modestly gives them, implies that he does not even consider them as proved, and still less as discoveries; although a learned reviewer of the first edition charges him with this presumption.