226 THE COMMOM COLICS OF THE HORSE 



views the caecum as a bowel for the digestion of cellulose, 

 where by churning, maceration, and decomposition, this 

 substance is dissolved and rendered fit for absorption, and he 

 likens it to the stomach of ruminants and the crop of birds. 

 He further considers that the caecum exists owing to the small 

 size of the stomach and the rapidity with which the contents 

 are sent along the small intestines. His experiments demon- 

 strated that the entire " feed " reaches the cascum between 

 twelve and twenty-four hours after entering the stomach, that 

 it remains there twenty-four hours, and during that time lo to 

 30 per cent, of the cellulose disappears. 



' The digestion of cellulose is no doubt a very important 

 matter, especially as we know that the poorer the food the 

 more cellulose digested ; but we are not prepared to admit 

 that food necessarily remains in the caecum twenty-four hours, 

 and we believe that cellulose digestion occurs principally, 

 though not entirely, in the colon, and, further, that it is not 

 absolutely necessary for the material to remain in the caecum, 

 but that it may pass on at once to the colon. The writer's 

 experiments on digestion have shown that ingesta may reach 

 the Ccecum three to four hours after entering the mouth, and 

 we are quite clear on the point that oats may travel some con- 

 siderable distance along the colon in four hours from the time 

 of being consumed, though this is regarded as exceptionally 

 rapid. For example, a horse which had never had maize and 

 had not tasted oats for two or three years, was fed first with 

 2J pounds of maize, and seventeen hours later with 4 pounds 

 of oats. The animal was destroyed four hours from the time 

 of commencing to eat the oats. Much maize and a few oats 

 were found in the pelvic flexure of the colon, and a certain 

 proportion of maize and a quantity of oats in the stomach. In 

 twenty- one hours the small ration of 2^ pounds of maize was 

 distributed between the stomach and pelvic flexure of the colon, 

 which is a very large area. In four hours the oats reached the 

 same point in the bowel that the maize had arrived at. This 

 is exceptionally rapid, but this experiment supports two points 

 it is desired to emphasize— viz., the difficulty in getting the 

 stomach to empty itself completely, and the rapid transit of 

 material through the small intestines.' 



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