FOOD 151 



There is probably no factor in the whole list of disease- 

 producing causes so fruitful of trouble as errors in feeding. 

 This is not difficult to understand when an animal cannot 

 express its requirements, and where men feed them with 

 as little discretion as they feed themselves. 



Further, in the search for disease-producing causes, 

 there is hardly anything so obvious to the trained mind as 

 bad food or errors in feeding, they can be demonstrated to 

 the layman, and good results at once obtained on their 

 being rectified. 



The very nature of the food of herbivora points to the 

 liability to trouble. Vegetable food is prone to undergo 

 fermentation in the digestive canal, much more likely than 

 when the diet is purely an animal or a mixed one. The 

 words colic and horse appear to be held together by a 

 bond, which it has been the duty of the profession to 

 prove can be very largely destroyed by care and manage- 

 ment in feeding. 



Not only is a vegetable diet a fermentable one, but it 

 must also be remembered that feeding on grain is a purely 

 artificial condition. Herbivora were intended to feed on grass 

 and not on hay and corn ; the introduction of corn into 

 their interior is not a natural state of things ; in fact, their 

 feeding is as artificial as their existence, hence the reason 

 why digestive troubles are so frequent. 



If the life of the horse is artificial, what term can we 

 employ to represent that of oxen, cows, sheep, and pigs? 

 Can anything be more repulsive than the Fat Show at 

 Islington ? We have previously described the methods by 

 which this condition of obesity is obtained, the absolute 

 freedom from excitement, repose, rich and unHmited food, 

 and no stone left unturned to stimulate the jaded palate ! 

 Nearly the same thing is produced amongst a certain class 

 of horse, fat being mistaken for condition, whereas it is its 

 physiological antithesis. 



What we have been endeavouring to show is that the 

 large class of digestive trouble met with among the 

 domesticated animals is the result of ignorance, and the 



Digitized by Microsoft® 



