Aesop’s vomit: or, stomach problems in early modern England

This essay tracks ideas about the stomach in early modern England and the perceived dangers that its actions presented to the status of the human.The argument moves from the depiction of the belly in early modern drama with its reflection on the vulnerability of human control; through medical ideas about eating and diet and the transformation of food into matter for use in, or expulsion from, the body; and, finally, it ponders the representation of Aesop's digestive system in The Life of Aesop, a text from the first century CE that accompanied collections of beast fables into the seventeenth century.The essay argues for a reevaluation of the human in the light of concerns about the stomach, eating and the processes of digestion that can be traced across a range of early modern texts.