divided food, there is, I take it, no doubt of this 

 fact as a general rule ; and the reason of this was 

 thus given to me by one of the Professors of Guy's 

 and St. Thomas's Hospitals, to whom I had pro- 

 pounded the question : " It is a well-known fact, 

 both from experiments and observation, that the 

 food is retained in the stomach for only a certain 

 time, and that, if the substances it contains are not 

 in a state of division fine enough to be acted upon 

 by the gastric juice in that period, they are passed 

 on to the intestines, where the nutritive portions of 

 only the digested food are absorbed into the system. 

 The advantages, I conceive, therefore, of this 

 pulping machine over machines which only slice 

 the roots is, that it imitates more the operation 

 effected on the food by the molar teeth. Food 

 which is only cut into pieces does not, of course, 

 expose so great a surface to be acted upon by the 

 gastric fluid ; and thus the nutritive effect of the 

 root is, of course, increased by such a machine ; 

 for the whole of the food is by this means subjected 

 to the dissolving power of the gastric juice." 



The pulping machine, however, is, after all, only 

 to be regarded as an aid to mastication : it cannot 

 render it unnecessary. We must ever be very 

 cautious in arriving at such conclusions ; for other 

 essential operations of animal life are here involved. 

 Lyon Playfair alluded carefully to some of these in 

 his first lecture. To give only one instance : The 

 use of saliva, according to Liebig, is to form a 

 receptacle for air, or oxygen, by which means it is 

 mixed with the food, and carried to the stomach. 

 The use of mastication, then, is not only to com- 

 minute the food, but also to mix it with air, or with 

 saliva. " We find," continued Dr. Playfair, " that 

 a larger size of chaff is given to those animals 

 which chew the cud, than to those which do not." 

 One great object of rumination is to obtain a 

 repeated supply of oxygen to the food. Hence in 

 our ordinary practice we cut the hay-chaff one 

 inch in length for oxen, half-an-inch for sheep, and 

 only a quarter of an inch for horses. The two first 

 being ruminating animals, require it longer thaa 

 the horse. I am aware that many farmers enter- 

 tain the opinion that cutting hay is only of use in 

 the facilities which it affords for mixing with the 

 inferior hay, straw, or other food (and the pulping 

 system is commonly supported by a similar argu- 

 ment). Straw, in fact, except when new, is not a 

 very nutritious food ; for we find a great part of it 

 unchanged in the faeces of the animal. Its prin- 

 cipal use perhaps is to give bulk to the food. Even 

 in the case of turnips, a food of considerable bulk, 

 straw is necessary, because these roots contain 

 ninety per cent, of water, which becomes soon 

 separated. Thus it is, that cattle fed upon turnips 

 voluntarily take two or three pounds of straw daily. 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



or as mucn as will serve to give the necessary bulk 

 to the food. This would appear to be the reason 

 for giving straw with turnips and other kinds of 

 succulent food. The common expression of the 

 farmer is, that straw " corrects their watery 

 nature," which means, increases their bulk, when 

 their water has left them and reduced their volume. 

 Rumination is requisite, in order to keep an ox in 

 health. A little hay or straw is accordingly neces- 

 sory to enable it to chew the cud. We know a case 

 in which barley-meal and boiled potatoes were 

 given to cows, without hay or straw. Constipation 

 resulted, and the cattle nearly perished from the 

 ignorance of the feeder. From these considera- 

 tions, Playfair concluded that a greater return will 

 be made by food partly but not too much me- 

 chanically divided. 



The difficulty of attaining anything like minute 

 accuracy in experiments upon digestion is, un- 

 fortunately, very considerable ; the inquiry in- 

 volving not only the varying degree of rapidity, 

 but also the completeness of the digestion of dif- 

 ferent substances. It is one of the many obstacles 

 in this case, that the mysterious process of 

 digestion is hidden from our eyes. We have only 

 one recorded case in which (owing to an opening 

 in the stomach caused by a wound) the digestive 

 process in a man's stomach could be actually 

 observed. This was the case of a robust Canadian, 

 St. Martin. Dr. Beaumont took advantage of this, 

 to subject to actual experiments in the patient's 

 stomach a variety of substances. The following 

 were some of the results obtained by him. In this 

 table, the time taken for complete digestion is given 

 in minutes : — 



Boiled rice 60 



Raw mellow apples . 90 



Barley soup 90 



Boiled sago 95 



Boiled barley 120 



Boiled tapioca .... 120 

 Raw cabbage, with 



vinegar 120 



Boiled beans 150 



150 

 150 

 150 



iro 



Boiled parsnips. . . . 



potatoes .... 



Raw cabbage .... 

 Raw sour apples . , 

 Boiled apple dump- 

 ling 



Indian corn bread . . 

 Fresh wheaten bread 210 

 Beets, boiled 225 



180 

 195 



The inquiry was not confined to vegetable sub- 

 stances — animal food was also experimented upon, 

 some of the results of which I subjoin, although 

 these are not strictly connected with the subject of 

 this paper. {Dr Bushmaii's Medicine, p. 294) : — 



Tripe, soused .... 60 

 Liver, broiled .... 120 



Boiled milk 120 



Raw milk 135 



Broiled lamb 150 



Boiled beef 165 



Roast do., underdone 180 

 Fresh salted pork. , 180 



Stewed ditto 180 



Mutton, boiled .. ISO 

 broiled .... 180 



Pork, broiled ,... 195 



steaks 195 



Mutton, roasted ,, 195 

 Melted butter ,.— 210 

 Beef, lean, roasted 210 



fried . . 240 



Calf's heart, fried — 240 



Veal, broiled 240 



— — fried 270 



Pork, roasted 315 



