CHAP. II.] AND DISEASES. — VALVES. 187 



at the end of twenty yards, an immensely wide 

 one occurs, called the sac (coecum), or blind gut, 

 whither the contents are prevented from passing in 

 too soon, by reason of the internal coat of the small 

 gut getting into folds, as 'twere. We may as well 

 consider this as another valve; and that it was 

 provided by the Author of Nature to correct the 

 animal's propensity for transgressing his laws 

 against repletion, as well as to prevent the contents 

 of the coecum from returning upwards, when this 

 latter is compressing the large intestines back- 

 wards, in the act of dunging. But inflammation 

 sometimes, obstructions oftener, produce at this 

 place more tedious affections than is generally 

 imagined. When it so happens that the stimulus 

 of the bile is insufficient (as in diseased liver), and 

 acrimonious particles are left behind, or the half- 

 masticated food inflicts injuries on the very sensible 

 surface of this passage, then the noisome effluvia 

 re-ascend to the stomach ; the bile, too, enters it 

 soon after, by reason of the intestines having lost 

 their power of compression and elongation, when 

 the cork-screw motion downwards is changed to an 

 upwards motion, and all becomes disorder in that 

 region. Loss of appetite, fever and dullness, with 

 drooping as if in pain, and a staring coat, follow 

 each other in succession ; for the secretion of bile, 

 which I shall come presently to describe, as af- 

 fecting the skin, is thereby vitiated. These ap- 

 pearances it has been & fashion to consider " symp- 

 toms of the worms," or of " debility" (another term 



