168 DADD’S VETERINARY MEDICINE AND SURGERY. 
We often hear wonderful stories related of bots burrowing 
through the coats of the stomach. This, we think, rarely takes 
place while the horse is alive. That cavity is the home of ths 
bot, its natural habitation; for we know of no other. Here it 
generally remains until it is capable of exercising an ir dependent 
existence. In this situation the little creature is too comfortaLlj 
szocated to burrow through the stomach into a cavity wuere if 
might perish for want of food. If the time has arrived for it t 
vacate ite stronghold, instinct teaches it the most safe and expe- 
ditious r»ute, which is through the alimentary canal. Turn a 
horse out to grass in the spring, or give him some green fodder in 
the stablc, and the bots will soon leave him, if they are matured ; 
otherwisc they must remain until that period arrives, unless 
Nature his some work for them to perform. We shall not contend 
that bots are never found in the abdominal cavity, for some per- 
sons have testified to the fact; but, during a practice of several 
years, and having opportunities of making many post-mortem 
examinations, we have not yet been able to observe the phenom- 
ena, except in cases of ruptured stomach. Still, a few solitary 
cases are on record, and hence it remains for us to explain how 
they got there. 
We all know that the moment a horse dies his whole body is 
subject to the common law of decomposition; but the central or- 
gans, where the greatest activity prevailed during life, are gener- 
ally the first to succumb. Our business is with the stomach, the 
great chemical laboratory, the center of sympathies—an organ 
that is very seldom permitted to rest, consequently an active cne. 
Its powerful solvents, during life, were busy in transforming hay 
and grain into chyme, chyle, and blood; but now that death haa 
the victory, the gastric fluid acts on the coats of the stomach, and 
thus its decomposition is effected; so that what was previously 
good food for bots is now their bane, and, unless they escape, their 
death is sure and certain. 
The peristaltic motion of the intestines, which favored the exit 
of the bots through that channel, has ceased; they are too weil 
acquainted with its intricate labyrinthian outlet (their usual route) 
to even attempt its passage. No! the same energies of one Eternal 
Mind, “pervading and instructing all that live,” suggests the 
only means of escape from threatening dangers. The stomach 
being partly decomposed, offers but little opposition to their en- 
