Organs of Digestion, 21 



mouth, there are in the horse three kinds of teeth, the front 

 teeth or incisors, called the " nippers ; the canine teeth, called 

 "tushes;" and the molar teeth, called "grinders.'^ The 

 appearance of the teeth and the amount of wear they dis- 

 close, enable those acquainted with their development to de- 

 cide positively of the age of a horse within one year up to 

 nine years of age. But a discussion of this subject does not 

 come within our province. 



The horse has but one stomach, while the ox and the sheep 

 have each four. They are in both animals known by the 

 same names. The first is the paunch or rumen ; the second 

 is the honeycomb or kingshood ; the third is the manyplies 

 or omasum ; the fourth is the red, the reuuet or the aboma- 

 sum. The first three communicate with the gullet by a 

 common opening. The " cud " is contained in the first and 

 second stomachs, and after it has been masticated a second 

 time it passes to the third and fourth, and to the bowels, to 

 undergo the further process of digestion. 



This is accomplished by the peculiar action upon it of the 

 secretion of the fourth stomach or rennet, an action fami- 

 liarly known by the use of rennet in the kitchen, and of 

 " pepsin " in medicine, which is obtained directly from this • 

 stomach ; and after it passes into the bowels by the secre- 

 tions of the liver and pancras or sweet bread. 



Thus prepared, it comes into contact in the long course of 

 the bowels — two hundred feet nearly in the ox — with count- 

 less little absorbing points called " villi,'^ which take up the 

 food now changed to a large extent to a thick fluid, leaving 

 the insoluble and undigested portions to continue down the 

 tube to the rectum or anus, whence they are periodically dis- 

 charged as feces or dung. 



As may readily be conceived, this intricate and delicate 

 process is easily disturbed, and hence loss of appetite, im- 

 paired digestion, and irregularity of the bowels accompany 



