274 DISEASES OF THE STOMACH. 



case. Equally in error should we stand were we to hold 

 the stomach altogether faultless : the only rational, or, at 

 least, likely to prove useful, view we can take of the sub- 

 ject, is an extended and comprehensive one; so that, by a 

 thorough scrutiny into all the circumstances of the case, we 

 may have a better chance of fixing on the organ or part 

 whose faulty action is deranging the process, and, by so 

 doing, defeating its salutary end in the animal economy. 



The comparatively short time the aliment continues 

 within the stomach, and the much that remains to be per- 

 formed to complete its digestion, after its passage into the in- 

 tines, accounts for the latter being oftener the seat of indi- 

 gestion than the former ; though, for all that, the stomach, 

 as we have already seen, may, by being over-crammed with 

 food or over- distended with air, become the seat of what 

 may be regarded as thg most dangerous of all kinds of iu- 

 digestion. To exclude, however, these two conditions of 

 stomach from our present inquiry, what I mean here by 

 indigestion, is, the progress of food through the alimentary 

 passages without its undergoing due or normal conversion ; 

 without, in fact, the animal deriving that benefit from it 

 which it was natural or reasonable to expect. 



The Symptoms of Indigestion — chronic^ as the French 

 writers call this, in contradistinction to the epithets acute, 

 gaseous, and vertiginous, which they apply to the other kinds 

 — though they clearly enough indicate that some one or 

 other of the operations of digestion are faultity performed, 

 are not in common such as will enable us to say in what 

 precise part or organ the fault or defect lies. The horse 

 does not thrive the same as other horses in the same 

 stable, nor is he capable of the same work ; though his ap- 

 petite, so far from being impaired, may be even voracious. 

 It may be fastidious — good at one time, indifferent at 

 another. Sometimes it is depraved : the horse will gnaw, 

 and perhaps eat, almost anything within his reach — dirt or 

 stones ; even a brick wall, and particularly the plaster or 

 mortar from it ; or his crib or nick, &c. His coat has an 

 unhealthy aspect ; it is what is called pen-feathered and arid, 



