134 A Manual of Veterinary Physiology. 



In ruminants probably the greater part of the food 

 substance is acted upon in the stomachs, leaving com- 

 paratively little for the intestines to perform. 



In spite of the changes which occur in the stomach, it has 

 been proved by the experiments of Colin that no absorption 

 occurs from /// is organ in the horse. It would be useless to 

 recapitulate all his experiments. They were generally per- 

 formed with strychnine, and he found that so long as the 

 pylorus was securely tied, no symptoms of poisoning would 

 occur when the alkaloid was introduced into the stomach 

 no matter how long it was left there, but that when the 

 ligature was untied, and the contents of the stomach 

 passed into the intestines, poisoning rapidly followed. 

 These remarkable results were obtained by him so often, 

 and under such varying conditions, as to leave no doubt as 

 to the accuracy of the observations. We can only surmise, 

 therefore, that no absorption of sugar or peptones occurs 

 in the stomach. It is certainly very remarkable what 

 becomes of the peptones. I have never found any in the 

 stomach contents, no matter what the period of digestion 

 may be; and if they are not absorbed in the stomach, 

 they must pass very rapidly into the intestines and enter 

 the vessels at once, as no peptone can be found in the 

 small intestines. 



I am not at all prepared to explain this non-absorption 

 from the stomach of the horse, and will touch on it later. 

 Colin attributes it to the small area of the mucous mem- 

 brane, which, he says, cannot be secreting gastric juice and 

 absorbing at the same time ; and in the empty stomach he 

 attributes the non-absorption of poisons to the thick layer 

 of tenacious mucus, which we have previously mentioned 

 covers the villous stomach of the horse. 



Self-digestion of the Stomach. — A question which has for a 

 long time given rise to an energetic discussion, is the reason 

 why the stomach during life does not digest itself, seeing 

 that the action of its secretion is so potent that portions <»f 

 living material, legs of frogs, ears of rabbits, etc., it' intro- 

 duced into it are readily digested, also that post-mortem 



