-ail- 



Able fact that easily digested food, if given over abundantly, is apt 

 to derange the small integtines; whereas food containing much 

 woody fibre, such as over-ripe hay, coarse straw, etc., accumulates in 

 the large intestines and there causes derangement, inflammation and 

 even paralysis of the intestinal muscular tissue. It is also a fact 

 worthy of notice, that if food be given artificially prepared, by boil- 

 ing or steaming, it is retained in the stomach itself and if given in 

 too large quantities causes distension, inflammation, paralysis and 

 even rupture. This is accounted for by the circumstance that food 

 imperfectly prepared for intestinal digestion is retained or imprisoned 

 by the action of the pyloric structures, and thus distends the stomach 

 by its bulk or by gases evolved by the process of fermentation, which 

 is apt to ensue. 



The food of the horse contains an abundant quantity of starchy 

 materials, and the process by which these are rendered soluble com* 

 mences in the mouth, not only by their admixture with the salivary 

 secretions, but by a chemical change through which the non-soluble 

 starch is converted into dextrine and grape sugar, and made fit for 

 the action of the intestinal, bilary and gastric secretions, and for ab- 

 sorption by the vessels of the gastric and intestinal walls. For the 

 purpose of performing this process the horse is provided with twenty- 

 four millstones, in the form of molar teeth, which have the power of 

 crushing and triturating the hardest food, and of an extensive sys- 

 tem of salivary organs which secrete very actively during the process 

 of mastication, a fluid which efiectively blends with and chemically 

 changes the food thus triturated. On this account it is found that 

 when horses are sufficiently but not overly fed with dry food of a 

 proper quantity, the stomach rarely suffers from disease. An error 

 in the diet, however, or a sudden change from one kind of food to 

 another, not only deranges the stomach, but the intestinal canal as 

 well. 



From various causes, such as improper food, the process of denti* 

 ;ion, diseases of the teeth causing imperfect mastication, ravenous 

 feeding, the presence of other diseases, debility of the stomach itself, 

 resulting from some constitutional predisposition, or from food given 

 ftv uncertain and rare intervals, a condition of indigestion is in- 

 duced in the horse. In young animals the same is induced by 

 druujijits of cold milk, removal from the dam at too early an age, or 



