Pepsin
It is no doubt all right and as it should be in Perch this best of all possible worlds. But when in that sublimated future which is to come, which will make human nature perfect and all the methods of food divine, the refined New Zealander who is to write our history dilates upon the manner of our eating, what astonishment will he not raise when he comes to speak of pepsin! We have our own pleasant thoughts upon the emetics which preceded a Roman meal, and think with wonder of the great captain, Julius Cæsar, preparing himself for a fresh repast by disgorging the undigested remains of the previous one. But what shall be said of ourselves? "In those days it was usual, even for people of refinement, when they could not themselves digest the dinner they had swallowed, to take the pig for a deputy, to avail themselves of his stomach, and to rejoice in the potency of his gastric juices. They bathed their masticated food in these juices taken at their supreme moment a point of time determined as follows. A young pig in the perfection of rude health was ready. He was starved in order that his gastric juices might be eager for work; with the edge of hunger upon him, the most appetizing food was placed before him in order that the juices might flow abundantly from the coats of his stomach, even as the mouth waters at the sight of food. At this supreme moment the young pig was killed, and his gastric juice carefully collected. It was dried, and it was found that a few grains of it swallowed after an aldermanic feast would create the digestive faculties of a hog, make a heavy dinner sit light upon the soul as an aërial banquet, and renew the appetite as though there were a dire famine in the land. These noble Christians of the western world ate their meat like men, but mated with swine for its digestion."