334 The Diseases of Animals 
They may also cause some irritation in the stomach, 
but, so far, veterinarians have been unable to diagnose 
their presence or to attribute disease directly to them. 
There is a popular belief that bots may eat holes 
through a horse’s stomach; but this is not correct. 
Fig. 51. Bots in horse’s stomach 
though it is possible that the irritation caused by the 
attachment of a bot may weaken the walls. When a 
horse dies, the gastric juice may digest the walls of the 
stomach, although this is rare. It may digest holes at 
the irritated places where bots have been attached. 
An amateur, in examining the stomach after death, 
might conelude readily, but erroneously, that the bots 
had eaten the holes. 
