INTRODUCTION 423 



and that bleeding is not so frequently necessary, nor 

 is it carried to such an extent in the former as in 

 horses, particularly in milch-cows. Many of the 

 medicines of which their drinks or drenches are com- 

 posed are quite inert, some are nearly so, and others 

 are very nasty." 



Black cattle, sheep, and goats are included in a 

 distinct order called ruminants, or those animals which 

 chew the cud. They have three kinds of teeth ; and 

 are destitute of the incisory or cutting teeth in the 

 upper jaw, but are furnished with eight in the lower 

 one, which are opposed to a dense callous structure in 

 the upper gums. There are twelve grinders in each 

 jaw, marked with two double crescents of enamel on 

 their crowns, of which the convexity is outwards in 

 the lower, and internal in the upper jaw. They have 

 four stomachs, calculated for ruminating, or the 

 faculty of masticating their food a second time, by 

 bringing it back to the mouth after a deglutition, a 

 faculty depending upon the structure of their stomachs. 

 The three first stomachs are so disposed that the food 

 may enter into either of them, the oesophagus ter- 

 minating at the point of communication. 



The first, and greatly the largest, is called the 

 paunch or *' rumen," and occupies a considerable por- 

 tion of the abdominal cavity. In this bag the food is 

 macerated after very slight mastication ; it is divided ex- 

 ternally into two saccular portions. It is in this cavity 

 that all these morbid concretions are formed, called 

 hairy balls, etc. (see Plate xiii, fig. 4, a). The second 

 stomach is called the honeycomb-bag or ''reticulum," 

 in consequence of its parieties being laminated like a 

 honeycomb. It is much smaller than the first, and of 

 a globular form. Its office is to seize, moisten, and 

 compress the food into little pellets, which afterwards 



