The prognosis varies with
the location of the disease, but is always serious.
Human rumination has been known for many years. Bartholinus,
Paullinus, Blanchard, Bonet, the Ephemerides, Fabricius Hildanus,
Horstius, Morgagni, Peyer, Rhodius, Vogel, Salmuth, Percy,
Laurent, and others describe it. Fabricius d'Aquapendente
personally knew a victim of rumination, or, as it is generally
called, merycism. The dissection by Bartholinus of a merycol
showed nothing extraordinary in the cadaver. Winthier knew a
Swede of thirty-five, in Germany, apparently healthy, but who was
obliged when leaving the table to retire to some remote place
where he might eject his food into his mouth again, saying that
it gave him the sensation of sweetest honey. The patient related
that from his infancy he had been the subject of acid
eructations, and at the age of thirty he commenced rumination as
a means of relief. To those who are interested in the older
records of these cases Percy and Laurent offer the descriptions
of a number of cases.
In a recent discussion before the American Neurological
Association Hammond defined merycism as the functions of
remastication and rumination in the human subject. He referred to
several cases, among them that of the distinguished physiologist,
Brown-Sequard, who acquired the habit as a result of experiments
performed upon himself.
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