Book VII. DISEASES OF HORNED CATTLE. 973 



tnany-plies. In the hornless ruminants, the second stomach is exclusively designed as a reservoir for 

 water, and is capable of holding and preserving a vast quantity of it. A little of this water is passed up, as 

 wanted, to be mixed with the dry matters chewed during rumination. In the deserts of Arabia, where 

 water is met with only at long distances, this reservoir is peculiarly advantageous to the camel and 

 dromedary; and the Arabian travellers, when famishing for water, save themselves frequently at the 

 expense of their camels, by killing of which, and taking out this stomach, they find a supply. 



6237. The third stomach is named after its foliated structure many-plies ; there are about eighty or 

 ninety of these septa or folds, which are covered with cuticle, in common with the two former stomachs, 

 by which, some resemblance is kept up between the digestive jjrocesses of the horse and ruminants. By 

 the comparative insensibility of these stomachs, they can also bear potent medicines, which would be 

 destructive to the carnivorae. By this curious extension of surface, the ruminated food is applied and re- 

 applied to the sides of the bag, to be acted upon in its early stage of digestion. 



R238. The fourth stomach, called also the red bag, abomasum faliscus, and ventriculus intestinalis, is 

 about two feet nine inches long in an ox, and resembles the simple digestive stomach of the mammalia. It 

 is in this stomach that the pultaceous mass of the chyme undergoes a more perfect animalization by being 

 mixed with the gastric fluid, which appears to be wholly secreted here, and thus it is that this stomach 

 only produces rennet. The red bag, to increase its secreting surface, has likewise about nine longitudinal 

 plica to each side, with an intervening rugose structure. 



6239. Rumination, or chewing the cud, is the process whereby tlie ruminant animals 

 collect their food, and with little or no mastication ; when such food is perfectly soft 

 and moist, as in grass, they form it into a bolus, and, M'ith little expenditure of saliva, 

 they pass it down the gullet into the paunch, which, when it has become distended with a 

 sufficient quantity, stimulates the animal to se^ for rest and quiet, and he commonly 

 lies down. The paunch begins now to exert its extraordinary powers of separating a 

 portion from the contained mass, and to return it into the mouth, where it undergoes a 

 complete mastication ; being retained from falling out of the mouth again by the nume- 

 rous papillae or roughnesses on the tongue, which are pointed backwards, and also by 

 the ridges of the palate : sufficiently masticated, and mixed with the saliva, it is again 

 passed down the throat, but instead of again entering the first stomach, the muscular 

 gutter forms itself into a tube, and carries it at once into the third stomach, where, 

 having to undergo a further changa, it is passed into the red bag, or fourth stomach ; 

 to undergo a further solution by means of the gastric fluid, preparatory to its being con- 

 verted into nutriment under the name of chyle. 



6240. The intestines of the ox have not their divisions into great and small so well 

 marked as in the horse ; yet the tract is very extended, to admit of a perfect separation 

 of all the chylous particles. In the intestines of the horse, it has been shown (5729,) 

 that much of the digestive as well as the operative process goes on ; but the chymous 

 mass is more broken down in the stomachs of a cow than by the united forces of the 

 stomachs and intestines of the horse. Grass, containing less organical moleculse than 

 grain, requires to be minutely acted on to afford nutriment; and thus the well fed horse, 

 after having been sufficiently nourished, passes off" dung containing much of the original 

 principles of his farinaceous food, and which forms excellent manure ; while that of the 

 ox is almost wholly decomposed, merely faeculent, and unfitted for this purpose. 



6241. The liver of the ox is large, and presents a gall-bladder, which that of the horse does not. This 

 gall bag is furnished by several hepatic ducts leading into the neck of the gall duct. By the existence of a 

 gall bladder, the bile is evidently more concentrated ; but it is difficult to understand why this should be 

 necessary to the ruminants and not to the horse 



6242. The pancreas of the. ox is of a lozenge form. The spleen is very large, and is placed on the left 

 side of the paunch. The biliary and pancreatic ducts unite together. The principal fold of the 

 omentum is very large, and incloses the four stomachs, and part of the intestines. The renal capsules are 

 flat and triangular. The kidneys are tabulated. 



6243. The organs of generation in the cow differ but little from those of the mare, and Other mam- 

 malia. The penis in the bull is more pointed and taper than that of the horse. The vesiculas seminales 

 are wanting, but have a small ligamentous bridge instead. The prostates are two. 



SuBSECT. 10. Of the Diseases of Horned Cattle. 



6244. Cattle are subject to some very dangerous diseases^ but as their life is less artifi- 

 cial, and their structure less complex, they are not liable to the variety of ailments which 

 affect the horse. The general pathology of the horse and ox being little different, the 

 fundamental rules for veterinary practice, and the requisite medicines, when not particu- 

 larized, will be found in the Veterinary Pharmacopeia, already given. (5879.) 



6245. Mild fever, pantas or pantasia. Caltle sometimes appear affected with heat, redness of ihe nos. 

 trils and eyelids : they refuse food, are dull, evacuate and stale with difficulty ; and the urine is high 

 colored. These symptoms are often aggravated every other day, giving it the appearance of an in- 

 termittent affection. The complaint is oiten brought on by over-driving in very hot weather, occasionally 

 by pushing their fattening process too fast. If there be no appearance of malignancy, and the heaving be 

 considerable, bleed, and give half an ounce of nitre in a drink night and morning ; but unless the weather 

 be cold do not house the animal. 



6246. InJlam7natoryfever\s caWedamon?, farners, cow-leeches, and graziers, by the various names of 

 black quarter, joint felon, quarter evil, quarter ill, showing of blood, joint murrain, striking-in of the 

 blood, &c. Various causes may bring this on. It is sometimes epidemic, and at others it seems occasioned 

 by a sudden change from low to very full keep. Over-driving has brought it on. No age is exempt from 

 it, but the young oflener have it than the mature. Its inflammatory stage continues but a few days, and 

 shows itself by a dull heavy countenance, red eye and eyelids : the nostrils are also red, and a slight 

 mucus flows from them. The pulse is peculiarly quick ; the animal is sometimes stupid, at others watchful, 

 particularly at first ; and in some instances irritable. The appetite is usually entirely lost at the end of 

 she second day, and the dung and urine either stop altogether, or the one is hard. 



day, and the dung and urine either stop altogether, or the one is hard, and the other red. 



" vhich terminates the infl-immatory action : and it is to 



iKC receives its various namcK. The deposit is, however. 



About the third day a critical deposit takes niace, which terminates the inflr,mma^ory action : and it is to 

 the various parts on" which this occurs, that the d!sea 



