THE INTESTINES 



203 



soft velvet feel. This coat is crowded with innumerable little mouths, which 

 are the commencement of minute vessels, by which the nutritive part of the 

 food is taken up ; and these vessels, uniting and passing over the mesentery, 

 carry this nutritive matter to a receptacle for it, whence it is conveyed into 

 the circulation, and distributed to every part. 



The intestines are more particularly retained in their places by the me- 

 sentery, c, (middle of the intestines,) which is a doubling of the peritoneum, 

 including the intestine in its botton., and likewise inclosing between its 

 folds the arteries and veins, and nerves, and the vessels which convey the 

 nutriment from the intestines to the circulation. The mesentery has some- 

 what the appearance of an expanded fan, and all these things ramifying 

 between its transparent folds, give it a beautiful appearance. 



CUT OF THE INTESTINES. 



a Commencement of the small intestines. The ducts which convey the bile and th« 

 secretion from the pancreas are seen entering a little below. 



b Convolutions or windings of the small intestines. 



e A portion of the mesentery. 



d The small intestines terminating in the coecum. 



« The coecum, or blind gut, with the bands running along it, puckering and dividing 



it into numerous cells, 

 y Beginning of the colon. 



g Continuation and expansion of the colon, divided like the coecum into cells. 



h Termination of the colon in the rectum. 



t Termination of the rectum at the anus. 



The first of the small intestines is the duodenum, a, so called because, 

 in the human subject, it is about twelve inches long. In the horse, it ip 

 nearly two feet in length. It is the largest in circumference of all the small 

 intestines, and receives the food converted into chyme by the digestive power 

 of the stomach, which in it undergoes another and very important change ; 

 a portion of it is converted into chyle. It is mixed with the bile and the 

 secretion from the pancreas, which enter about five inches down the intes- 

 tine. The bile. seems to be the principal agent in this change ; no sooner 

 tloes it mingle with the chyme, than the fluid begins to be separated into two 

 distinct ingredients, a thick white liquid, termed chyle, and containing the 



