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GORGED STOMACH : 

 Usually denominated Stomach Staggers, 



By "gorged^^ is meant that state of excessive plentitude and 

 distension in which the stomach loses all power of contract- 

 ing upon its contents. We have no evidence that the sto- 

 mach sustains any positive or direct harm from long fasting; 

 but from subsequent and sudden repletion it is liable to be 

 put into a condition of the greatest danger : on which 

 account it behoves us to be cautious how we feed horses who 

 have gone long without food, and have returned home with 

 ravenous appetites. Instead of filling their maugers with 

 corn and chaff, and other proveuder capable of being bolted 

 whole, we should give them but a very moderate allowance 

 of manger-meat, and rather endeavour to appease their 

 sharpened appetites by hay and other food which requires a 

 degree of mastication, so as to afford the stomach time for 

 performing its duty in digestion, and of ridding itself of part 

 of its contents before sufficient aliment be swallowed to dis- 

 tend it beyond its powers. For, as Gibson has truly enough 

 observed, if a man over-fills his stomach, he has a chance of 

 relieving himself by vomiting, and so " getting rid of his 

 enemy :^' an alternative more prompt and facile still in a 

 dog ; but as for a horse, who has " no natural disposition 

 to vomit, the only chance he has of relief is " passage down- 

 ward.^' An instructive account of the effects of fasting and 

 subsequent repletion used to be given by Professor Coleman 

 in his lectures. 



The Professor was consulted about some horses, among 

 whom had occurred a strange and unaccountable fatality. 

 On inquiry, he found that the custom of the establishment 

 was, to keep their horses out at work for ten hours together 

 without food, and to feed them in abundance on their re- 

 turn home. The source of the evil at once became evident. 

 The Professor ordered, for the time to come, that the horses 

 be fed once in the course of the time they were out, by means 

 of nose-bags ; and the fresh practice immediately put to flight 

 a disease which had proved the causeof death of several of them. 



