60 AMERICAN FARMER'S HORSE BOOK. 



larynx, and, with reference to the trachea, is situated to the 

 left. 



The digestive organs of the horse are so important, as re- 

 gards both their aggregate size and their functions, and are 

 so extremely liable to sudden and severe attacks of disease, 

 that every farmer and horseman should be at especial pains 

 to get a correct notion of their structure, and the offices which 

 they severally perform. The reader of this section will de- 

 rive material assistance in fixing its descriptions in his mind 

 by turning to Chapter XIII, and carefully studying, in con- 

 nection with our descriptions, the representations of the 

 stomach and the bowels, which are there introduced. To 

 aid him in this we shall frequently refer him to those cuts. 



The stomach of the horse is very small, when compared 

 with the great bulk of his entire body, or with the relative 

 size of the same organ in man. Its average capacity is about 

 three gallons ; while the stomach of man, whose weight is 

 hardly one-eighth of that of the horse, contains frd^uently 

 three quarts. As the vegetable diet, however, upon which 

 the horse subsists, yields a smaller proportion of nutritive 

 matter than animal food, and that proportion with greater 

 difficulty, it is necessary that the animal should be provided 

 with a digestive apparatus of greater extent and perfect 

 efficiency. What seems to be wanting in the stomach of the 

 horse, we accordingly find made up in the formation of the 

 intestines, which are long, large, and complicated. We will 

 consider them presently. 



Two openings and two sacs form the features which one 

 would be most likely to notice first, in examining the stom- 

 ach. The upper opening is the connection with the oesopha- 

 gus. It is called the cardiac orifice, and in the cut of the 

 stomach is shown at b. Youatt describes this entrance of 

 the oesophagus into the stomach as follows : "The oesopha- 

 gus enters in a somewhat curved direction. It runs obliquely 

 through the muscular and cuticular coats for some distance, 

 and then its fibers arrange themselves around the opening 

 into the stomach. Close observation has shown that they 



