BOTS. 287 



believe very rarely, they are found hooked into the villous 

 coat; these, however, are nothing more than stragglers — 

 bots, probably, that had, on their arrival in the stomach, been 

 hastily carried with the aliment into its vascular part, 

 before they had the power of fixing their hooks into the 

 cuticular. Here, then, is a fact which ought to stifle our 

 apprehensions about the pain and irritation that these ani- 

 mals are said to occasion : how they can cause either when 

 they are fastened to an insensible part — to a part as devoid 

 of feeling in itself as the very hoofs are — I have yet to learn. 

 On one occasion, I found more bots within the vascular than 

 cuticular portion of the stomach, and a still greater number 

 within the duodenum ; and this happened in the month of 

 January. I have repeatedly found them in the duodenum. 

 However, I regard these as mere casual facts : their ordinary 

 and natural nidus appearing to be the cuticular pouch of the 

 stomach. Farther on, a case will be given in which they 

 had made their way into the oesophagus. The bot thus 

 transported — about the latter part of the summer, while 

 horses are at grass — remains in the stomach through the 

 winter, unti«l the end of the ensuing spring, when, being at 

 the consummation of this stage or form of existence, it 

 spontaneously disengages itself, and passes with the chymous 

 matters into the intestinal canal ; where its stay probably is 

 but short, since it now lies loose among the alimentary mat- 

 ters, and is eventually cast out from its animal abode with 

 the dung. 



Now, it has long been a question, and one which is not 

 yet set at rest, on what these worms subsist in the stomach. 

 Mr. Clark supposes their food to be the chyme, which, (he 

 says) being nearly pure aliment, affords probably but little 

 excrementitious residue. I do not, however, believe that 

 " nearly pure aliment^^ — what we understand by chyle — 

 is found in the stomach, much less in the cuticular part of 

 of it, where, as far as I have observed, the food itself re- 

 mains unchanged even into chyme. But, suppose they 

 were surrounded by chymous, or even chylous matter, their 

 mouths, instead of floating in it, are opposed to, if not in 



