168 DADDS VETERINARY MEDIClJNE AND SURGERT. 



We often liear wonderful stories related of bots burro^\ing 

 through the coats of the stomach. This, we think, rarely tokoi 

 place while the horse is alive. That cavity is the home of tli- 

 bot, its natural habitation ; for v/e know of no other. Here it 

 generally remains until it is capable of exercising an ii^dppendent 

 existence. In this situation the little creature is too cc-nfurtallj 

 located 1o burrow through the stomach into a cavity where it 

 might perish for want of food. If the time has arrived for it L' 

 vacate itr stronghold, instinct teaches it the most safe and expe- 

 ditious r mte, which is through the alimentary canal. Turn a 

 horse out to grass in the spring, or give him some green fodder in 

 the stabh, and the bots will soon leave him, if they are matured ; 

 otherwise they must remain until that period arrives, unless 

 Nature his some work for them to perform. ^Ye shall not contend 

 that bot£ are never found in the abdominal cavity, for some per- 

 sons have testified to the fact; but, during a practice of several 

 years, and having opportunities of making many post-mortem 

 examinations, we have not yet been able to observe the phenom- 

 ena, except in cases of ruptured stomach. Still, a fev/ solitary 

 cases are on record, and hence it remains for us to explain ho\i 

 they got there. 



We all know that the moment a horse dies his whole body is 

 subject to the common law of decomposition ; but the central or- 

 gans, where the greatest activity prevailed during life, are gener- 

 ally the first to succumb. Our business is with the stomach, the 

 great chemical laboratory, the center of sympathies — an organ 

 that is very seldom permitted to rest, consequently an active one. 

 Its ])0werful solvents, during life, were busy in transforming hay 

 and grain into chyme, chyle, and blood ; but now that death has 

 the victory, the gastric fluid acts on the coats of the stomach, and 

 thus its decomposition is effected; so that what was previously 

 good food for bots is nov/ their bane, and, unless they escape, tLeii 

 <ic;itli is sure and certain. 



The peristaltic motion of the intestines, which favored the exil 

 of the bots through that channel, has ceased ; they are too well 

 ac(iuainted with its intricate labyrinthiaa outlet (their usual route) 

 to even attempt its passage. No ! the same energies of one Eternal 

 Mind, "j)ervading and instructing all that live," suggests the 

 only means of escape from threatening dangers. The stomach 

 I e'vAii partly decomposed, offers but little opposition to their en- 



