When the Stomach Rumbles

Good smells have been coming from the kitchen all day. 

Something well-done, something zesty, smooth, tasty. Something sweet with whipped cream. And now you’re hungry, your taste buds whisper that it’s time to eat. As in the new book “Rumbles: A Curious History of the Gut” by Elsa Richardson, your stomach speaks a little louder. 

It’s one of the most embarrassing things that can happen: there you are, in a meeting or church or somewhere fancy and you experience borborygmi. That’s the scientific way of saying that your belly growls and oops. Says Richardson, “Of the seventy-eight organs of the body, the stomach is certainly… the noisiest.” 

Our early ancestors thought that those gurgles indicated “devils” inside the body, fighting to get out. It took awhile – centuries, in fact – for anyone to fully know that the gut is much more complicated than that. Our abdomens teem with activity, millions of neurons, and good and bad bacteria and, though we’ve only recently come to fully understand it, “the gut communicates with the brain through several key routes in the body…” 

In the meantime, a lot of questionable experiments were done on a lot of unfortunate animals for the sake of learning. What we humans ate, how much and how we ate it were all widely discussed. We began to assimilate table manners, first as a way for better digestion and then because it was just so much more civilized; diners were advised to “control their emotions” while eating, lest they upset the stomach. 

The Victorians invented the idea of lunch, and since it coincided with the increase in non-agrarian office jobs, both were very controversial. Merely eating was rife with debate, which led to dieting and the issues that surrounded it. One never wanted to seem gluttonous; even just a few years ago, “newspapers reported with horror… that obesity might be contagious.” 

And over it all, as time and chyme passed, knowing about our digestion meant a pressing need to know how to dispose of the end result of it. 

Reading “Rumbles” is a little like being given a large cabinet full of drawers. 

Pull one open, and you might learn about physicians in ancient times. Open another, and you’ll read about biomedicine and cutting-edge technology. A third reveals material that might make you a little sick to your… well, you know. Each subject is a bit random, and though author Elsa Richardson maintains ties to the overall topic at hand, the haphazard this-and-that can make it very easy to forget what you’re reading about. Richardson also relies a lot on ancient history and culture, but her research on later and more contemporary knowledge of the gut is more engaging. 

Still, what you’ll learn inside this book is fun to know, and the information may, if you use it as a launching pad, enhance your health through the understanding of digestion. For readers who are filled with esoteric curiosity, for diners, and for anyone who (surprisingly!) has IBS, Crohn’s disease, or other maladies, “Rumbles” is well done. 

“Rumbles: A Curious History of the Gut: The Secret Story of the Body’s Most FascinatingOrgan” By Elsa Richardson. c.2024, Pegasus Books, $28.95, 326 pages