248 



Observations on the Camel's Stomach respecting the Water it contains, 

 and the Reservoirs, in which that Fluid is inclosed; with an Account 

 of some Peculiarities in the Urine. By Everard Home, Esq. F.R.S. 

 Read June 12, 1806. [PAi/. Trans. 1806, p. 357.] 



The camel, on which Mr. Home's observations were made, was a 

 female, twenty-eight years old, and was brought from Arabia. It 

 drank regularly, every second day, six gallons of water, sometimes 

 seven and a half; but would not drink in the intervening period. It 

 daily consumed a peck of oats, one of chaff, and one third of a truss 

 of hay. It was killed on the first of April last, by thrusting a double- 

 edged poniard between the skull and the first vertebra of the neck ; 

 it had a few hours before drank three gallons of water. 



A very particular account of the animal's various stomachs, and of 

 those of the bullock, together with the mode in which the food suc- 

 cessively passes into them, is now given. From these (which our 

 limits necessarily oblige us to omit,) it appears, that in the bullock 

 there are three stomachs for the preparation of the food, and one for 

 its digestion ; whereas, in the camel, there is one stomach that an- 

 swers the purpose of the two first of the bullock, a second employed 

 merely as a reservoir for water, a third so small and simple in the 

 structure of its internal membrane, that it can answer no purpose 

 except that of retarding the progress of the food, and making it pass 

 into the fourth stomach by small portions (for as it is not lined with 

 a cuticle, it cannot be compared to any of the preparatory stomachs 

 of the bullock), and a fourth, or true digesting stomach. 



It appears, from our author's examination, that the camel, when it 

 drinks, conducts the water in a pure state into the second stomach ; 

 that part of it is retained there, and the rest runs over into the first 

 stomach, acquiring a yellow colour in its course. This purity of the 

 water in the second stomach is a well-known fact ; but by what 

 means the water was kept separate from the food, had never been 

 explained ; nor had any other part been discovered by which the 

 common offices of a second stomach could be performed. For Mr. 

 Home's explanation of the mode in which the former is effected, we 

 must refer to the paper itself, and especially to the figures of the 

 parts with which it is accompanied. 



From the facts stated by our author, the following gradation of 

 ruminating stomachs is established by him. 



Those ruminants which have horns, as the bullock, sheep, &c., 

 have two preparatory stomachs for the food previous to rumination, 

 and one for the food to be received in after rumination. 



The ruminants that have no horns, as the camel, dromedary, 

 llama, &c., have one preparatory stomach for the food before rumi- 

 nation, but none in which it can be properly said to be afterwards 

 retained, before it passes into the digesting stomach. 



Those animals that eat the same kind of food as the ruminants, 

 but do not ruminate, as the horse and ass, have only one stomach ; 

 but a part of it is lined with a cuticle : in this part the food is first 



