DISEASES UF THE DIGESTIVE ORGANS. 167 
nas, at various times, purposely swallowed large draughts of water 
ecntaining myriads cf animalcule, without ever perceiving any 
effect; and he combats the notion that diseases are produced or 
propagated by these parasites taken into the body. The most 
curious feature in the history of parasites is their extraordinary 
powers of multiplication, which is doubted by some; but it is well 
known to others that some species are capable of producing a 
hundred repetitions of themselves, and the process can be repeated 
ten times in a season. The common white ant is capable of de- 
positing eggs at the rate of 80,000 per day, for several successive 
veeks, and the common flesh-maggot can be generated by the 
million in the course of a few hours; and as regards growth and 
development, the common flesh-fly and the caterpillar increase in 
weight 200 times in the course of twenty-four hours. 
But the bot is a creature that does not multiply nor increase in 
bulk at this rapid rate. He may be said to be a “slow coach,” 
and when once located in the stomach of a horse, he generally 
makes it his abode for a season, at least. He is a sort of aristo- 
cratic entozoa. He lives in the upper region, the stomach. He 
seldom condescends to mix with the lower orders that infest the 
alimentary regions. The little creature seems to exercise consid- 
erable tact in selecting his location. Although he has but a squat- 
ter’s title to it, yet it is the best and safest in the whole diggings. 
He is in the upper part of the stomach, where the fluids (poisons 
or medicines) with which you are about to coax or drive him off, 
are inoperative, (for they merely give him a sort of shewer-bath,) 
and pass immediately through the stomach into the intestines, 
where all the fluid a horse drinks is generally found; therefore 
they can not act on the bot. Then, again, he is located on the 
cuticular coat of the stomach, a membrane as insensible as the 
horse’s hoof, and, therefore, not liable to becom: diseased, nor to be 
acted on by either medicine or bot nostrums. You may kill the 
horse by the same, but the bot, being within his own castle, can 
refuse whatever you offer him. 
We can not make medicine act on the external surface of the 
bot, for it does not absorb fluid; it is impervious. These crea- 
tures have been put into muriatic acid, and kept there for a time, 
without being injured. You may put them into new rum, and 
keep them or weeks, and, on taking them out and exposing them 
to the s» = rays, they will manifest vitality. 
