146 THE NATURE AND TREATMENT OF 



nutritious material, over and above what the animals actually 

 need. 



We can develop the gormandizing powers of very many 

 creatures by placing before them, from day to day, more than 

 they require, their appetites, like some of ours, are not proof 

 auainst temptation, and the digestive organs may be trained to 

 dispose of twice the quantity of food, actually needed, and 

 the habit at first acquired, becomes permanent, and the 

 creature is known as a voracious feeder — a glutton. Hence, 

 through indiscretions of this character, we can augment both 

 function and capacity of stomach. I remember examining 

 the stomach of a horse, the property of a baker, who was in 

 the habit of feeding the former on brown bread. The animal 

 died of chronic indigestion, and his stomach exceeded in 

 capacity that of two ordinary horses. 



Great care, therefore, is requisite in regard to the proper 

 feeding of all animals, for in their domesticated state, they have 

 lost those natural instincts which serve to inform the untamed 

 animal of the necessary amount of food which his system needs, 

 and they are in the condition of a thoughtless child that will 

 eat all day, and on retiring to bed will crave and cry for more. 



My readers have probably heard of the gormadizing pro- 

 pensities of natives in the arctic regions ; some of them think 

 nothing of bolting down 20 pounds of meat and oil per day, and 

 making a good supper on tallow candles. A case is related, by 

 Captain Cochrane, of a Russian who eat, in the course of 

 twenty-four hours, the hindquarter of an ox, twenty pounds 

 of fat and drank a quantity of melted butter. He also states 

 that he has seen three gluttons consume a deer at one meal. 

 But we need not go beyond our immediate vicinity to prove 

 that the gormandizing powers of both men and horses are 

 equally extraordinary. The corn dealer's bill furnishes one 

 illustration ; and the lengthened meal which some of our young 

 men indulge in, commencing in the morning and only ending at 

 night, completes the evidence. 



Hence with these facts before us, we may safely conclud(j 

 that errors in diet are constantly occurring, and consequently, 



