Sheridan was once warned that his heavy drinking would destroy the coat of his stomach. "Well, then," he nonchalantly replied, "my stomach must just digest in its waistcoat."

[The physician William Beaumont did pioneering work on digestion using as an experimental subject a man named Alexis St. Martin, who had accidentally been shot in the side (in June 1822) in northern Michigan. St. Martin (who retained an opening an inch across leading directly into his stomach) was kept so busy that he finally ran away. He died at the age of eighty-two -- having outlived his doctor by twenty-seven years.]