68 THE COMMON SENSE OP THE MILK QUESTION 



that, while the animal was eating, the stomach emp- 

 tied its contents, altogether undigested, into the in- 

 testine. At the other end of the intestine is a very- 

 large csecum, or gut, which occupies about 60 per cent 

 of the digestive tract. The digestion of the food in 

 this case is not performed by the stomach, but by the 

 intestine. Now, if we could only observe the working 

 of this digestive system in a very young foal, we 

 should find the mare's milk forming, not a hard clot 

 like the cow's, but a clot very soft and like jelly. This 

 jellylike clot passes at once into the intestine from 

 the stomach and is there digested. Now, then, sup- 

 pose that instead of letting the mare nurse her off- 

 spring, we take it away and feed it upon cow's milk, 

 or the milk of some other animal which resembles it 

 in having a hard, tough curd. As the hard clots of 

 curd pass into the intestine, which is suited only to 

 the digestion of a soft, jellylike curd, what happens ? 

 Why, obviously, intestinal irritation and inflam- 

 mation. The hard curd is a foreign substance in 

 the intestine; it cannot be digested. Thus in the 

 stomach of the foal the milk intended for a calf by 

 Nature becomes an irritant and a poison. 



Now, let us take the human infant. Here, again, 

 we have a young animal with a single stomach, which 

 occupies about 20 per cent of the entire digestive 

 tract, or less than one-third the proportion occupied 

 by the four stomachs of the calf in its digestive tract. 



