134 PROCESS OF DIGESTION. [BOOK I. 



right orifice occasions a short obstruction until the 

 pulp is mixed; for, when the stomach is filled, the 

 relative position of the two orifices alters m a good 

 degree. From these premises it seems apparent 

 that any substance entering an empty stomach does 

 not act upon the sensible part of it, but being soon 

 mixed up with the gastric juice, it proceeds into 

 the intestines, there to communicate its effects — 

 whatever these may be. Whether nutritive or 

 medicinal, poisonous or beneficial, the intestines 

 receive all with but little alteration*. But when 

 it so happens that the food does not pass readily 

 out of the stomach, a fermentation commences, 

 and the sensible part thereof being then distended, 

 the ill effects ascend the gullet, reach the head, and 

 cause vertigo, staggers, &c. At times, a specific 



* At this place, for the information of those who would practise 

 the veterinary art by comparison, it may be useful to observe, that 

 in the human stomach is digestion principally performed, in the 

 horse's very little ; in both, the small intestines appear to mix the 

 food with the bile and other digestive juices ; but man having no 

 ccecum, or blind gut, like the horse, to receive water and the heavier 

 parts of the food as they escape from the small intestines, his lacteals 

 begin higher up than those of the horse, which lie wholly on the large 

 intestines. It follows that, whatever is received into the stomach of 

 man is felt through the system immediately; with the horse this does 

 not take place until it has reached the intestines. One other dis- 

 similarity in the mode of digestion is worthy notice : in man, the 

 work of digestion is nearly finished when the bile is mixed with the 

 food — say at an average of twelve hours from its being taken, whilst 

 the horse passes his feeds into the intestines in about two hours, 

 before it has well assumed an homogeneous appearance, which the 

 bile seems mainly to effect for him. With us liquid remains in the 

 stomach ; the horse passes water immediately into the ccecum. 



