116 A Manual of Veterinary Physiology. 



We observe that the rate of digestion during the first two 

 hours is rapid, and it then falls off, so that even at the end 

 of eight hours there is still something left in the stomach. 

 The second horse in the five hours' observation had very 

 nearly digested the whole of the ration, but this is an ex- 

 ception. 



There is no doubt that it is extremely difficult to get the 

 stomach to empty itself. I fed a horse on dried grass and 

 destroyed it eighteen hours later ; there was still a small 

 quantity of food in the stomach. In another case the 

 stomach, after fifteen hours, was found empty. In a third 

 case a horse was given grass twice at intervals of twenty- 

 four hours. He Avas destroyed eighteen hours after eating 

 his last feed, and a handful of grass was still found in his 

 stomach. 



Digestion of Oats. — We must now consider the digestion 

 of oats, and here we observe the same remarkable fact noted 

 under hay, viz., that the stomach commences to pass its 

 contents into the intestine during feeding, and that this 

 considerably slackens when no more food is entering the 

 viscus. Colin fed six horses on 5*5 lbs. of oats each, and 

 destroyed them at certain intervals. 



lbs. lbs. 



After 2 hours one horse had digested 2'728 : a second, 2*5564 

 „ 4 „ „ „ 3-095 „ 3-4562 



„ 6 „ „ „ :$-553 „ 3-0250 



I have observed in a horse which had received 2 lbs. of 

 oats, and was destroyed twenty hours later, that the stomach 

 had not completely emptied itself; in another experiment 

 four hours after feeding on 1 lb. of oats, I recovered 6 ozs. 

 from the stomach. 



