64 HOESE MANAGEMENT IN INDIA. 



tion of gas. Hence we may conclude that horses ought 

 not to be watered soon after being fed, and that they 

 should not be given large supplies of boiled food 

 which is very bulky in comparison to the amount 

 of nutriment it contains, and can also be rapidly 

 swallowed. Besides, exciting but a small secretion of 

 saliva, it arrives in the stomach in an unprepared state, 

 and is consequently liable to become decomposed before 

 the gastric juice can act on it. 



The antiseptic properties of gastric juice is well 

 shown by the immunity with which many races of 

 men eat putrid flesh and fish. 



The active principle of gastric juice pepsine con- 

 verts fche nitrogenous matters of the food into a soluble 

 form peptone and also serve to split up the fat into 

 a state of fine division, by dissolving the nitrogenous 

 envelopes, which enclose the globules. "When the 

 food now called chyme leaves the stomach and 

 enters into the small intestine, it becomes mixed with 

 bile and pancreatic juice which flow from a common 

 duct. The action of the fluid which comes from the 

 pancreas (sweetbread) is very similar in its nature to, 

 though much more energetic, than that of the saliva, the 

 work of which in converting starch and cane sugar into 

 grape sugar it completes. It also, like gastric juice, 

 dissolves albumen. By virtue of its alkaline nature, it 

 makes an emulsion, or soap, with the fat contained in 

 the chyme, which consequently assumes a white appear- 

 ance, and is then termed chyle. The particles of fat 

 are thus split up into a very fine state of division, so as 

 to be readily absorbed in an unchanged state, as none 

 of the digestive fluids produce any effect on their com- 



