38 PHYSIOLOGY AT THE FAKM. 



to afford them an outer free-surfaced coveringnamely, the 

 liver, the stomach, the small intestines, the great intestines. 



A great arterial trunk passes from the chest through the 

 diaphragm backwards in the loins to supply the abdominal 

 viscera with arterial blood, while a great corresponding vein 

 collects the blood, which, after being in part sent through the 

 liver, goes through the diaphragm to the heart. Nerves and 

 lymphatics also abound in every part of the abdominal cavity. 



The Stomach. The stomach of the abdominal organs de- 

 serves the first particular notice (fig. 6). 



The stomach of the horse, which is small compared with 

 the size of the animal, lies behind the diaphragm, between the 

 gullet and the duodenum. When distended it represents a 

 conical-curved bag with its large end towards the left, its 

 small end towards the right side. It has been likened to the 

 wind-bag of a bagpipe, which is by no means an unapt com- 

 parison. The large end of the stomach is termed its fundus, 

 and this name properly applies to that expanded part of the 

 organ which lies to the left of the entrance of the gullet 

 for the gullet in the horse, and in herbivorous animals in 

 general, does not enter at the extreme left of the organ, as in 

 purely carnivorous animals, but nearly in the middle of its 

 anterior side. In the human stomach the entrance of the 

 gullet holds a middle place between that exhibited in her- 

 bivorous animals and that exhibited in carnivorous animals. 

 It results from its bent form that the stomach has two cur- 

 vatures the concave or lesser curvature, and the convex or 

 greater curvature. The concavity of the lesser curvature looks 

 upwards and to the right ; the convexity of the larger cur- 

 vature looks downwards and forwards, the stomach turning 

 as it becomes distended on an imaginary axis running through 

 the cardia and pylorus, that is, the upper and under orifices, 

 so that the axis subtends the lesser curvature. The stomach 



