62 AMERICAN FARMER'S HORSE BOOK. 



area of the stomach — in the upper part, of course, next the 

 gullet. In structure it is web-like, with a somewhat loose 

 attachment to the muscular membrane, from which it maj 

 be easily separated after death. When washed and cleaned, 

 it has the appearance of gauze, or fine net-work. The vil- 

 lous coating of the stomach is of a brownish red, marbled 

 with lighter tints of the same color, and possesses a delicate 

 texture, so as to be easily torn; yet it has an exceedingly 

 limited degree of sensibility, since, were it otherwise, many 

 common articles of the horse's fogd could not be digested 

 without great pain. Numerous little capillary tubes have 

 their outlet upon this membrane, and pour out a peculiar 

 secretion, which continues the softening process already be- 

 gun in the mouth by the saliva. This is the gastric fluid. It 

 acts not only as a solvent, but also contributes other mate- 

 rials—especially what is called pepsine — that greatly facilitate 

 digestion. 



By these agencies the food is converted into the substance 

 called chyme, which passes out through the pylorus into the 

 intestines, there to be still further digested, its nutritive par- 

 ticles taken up and transferred to the general circulation, 

 and its waste matter duly avoided. 



The intestines, to which we have now come, in the natural 

 progress of our descriptions, constitute a hollow tube, with 

 many windings and convolutions, nearly ninety feet long in 

 an average-sized horse. In diameter the tube varies exceed- 

 ingly at different parts. The intestines have three coat- 

 ings — the same, indeed, as the stomach, with only this difter- 

 ence, that they nowhere exhibit the cuticular lining. These 

 membranes, however, are not precisely identical in their sev- 

 eral arrangements and uses throughout their entire length. 



The muscular coating of the intesjbines is composed of two 

 sets of fibers, crossing each other at right angles, and each 

 running transversely with the line of the bowels. In certain 

 intestinal diseases of the horse, it is subject to fearful co^itrac- 

 tions, producing what are called strictures. In the mucous 

 or internal membrane are seated myriads of little capillary 



