148 



PHYSIOLOGY 



two colours, but principally arterial. It does not coagulate so firmly 

 as when exposed to the air. This blood is preserved from putrefaction 

 by the animal's powers for months ; however, it becomes more black 

 than what it is at first. By adding fresh water to them, it will often 

 make them throw up their blood after it has been in for months : this I 

 have seen. 



That the juices of the stomach have the power of coagulating many 

 substances, is clearly seen in the stomachs of some fishes that eat 

 crabs, lobsters, craw-fish, &e. ; for if you open a grig a little while 

 after it has swallowed a craw-fish, you will find that the shell is turned 

 red, as if it had been boiled or steeped in spirit of wine 1 . 



Many animals which feed upon green vegetables have those vegetables 

 ferment and they burst. The seat of fermentation is very different in 

 different classes of animals. In ruminating animals it is in the first 

 cavity of the stomach, where a great quantity is taken in much more 

 than they can ruminate, so as to get it to the digestive stomach before 

 fermentation commences. Accordingly the air which is let loose is 

 more than the stomach can contain, and it bursts. As such animals 

 have the power of regurgitation, one would conceive they might throw 

 up the air, but they do not. 



For such complaints they pierce the abdomen and the ' first' bag with 

 a trochar ; but I conceive that if a hollow tube was introduced into the 

 stomach, the air might be evacuated that way. 



The other situation of rupture from the fermentation of green vege- 

 tables is the colon in horses ; the stomach has the power of preventing 

 this process, as also the small intestines where its passage is pretty 

 quick. 



Of the Intestines. 



As the intestinal canal in brutes is more detached than in the human 

 subject, and only adheres by the mesentery, it is almost impossible to 

 say exactly what is the true situation of these parts, they being so 

 subject to vary in their situation. 



The reason why the duodenum is seen in all its length in brutes is, 

 because neither the caecum nor colon adheres [to the abdominal walls], 

 as in the human subject ; it is only that part of the mesentery that is 

 seen on the right which attaches the ileum to the colon and caecum 

 that covers the duodenum, as the caecum adheres lower down than the 

 transverse part of the duodenum. 



The small intestines of herbivorous animals are generally smaller and 

 longer, their great intestines much larger and longer, than those of the 



1 [Tliis rather exemplifies the acid quality of the gastric juice.] 



