544 Kidil V. Royal Agricuitural Society of England. 
Q. You would not begin with 12 lbs. ?—A. I should not. 
Q. Do not you think it would be safer, looking to the possible effect of the 
mangold or other food fermenting in the rumen, to begin with 3 or 4 lbs. ?— 
A. But good linseed-cake, as cake, wiW not produce the morbid action on the 
nerves of the stomach, and therefore will not give rise to the fermentation 
I want to impress that upon your minds. 
Q. I am not asking about that, but about the chemical action from coming 
in contact with other food in the rumen ? — A. But there is no chemical action 
set up in the cake itself. 
Q. Pardon me for a moment. You say you would not give 12 lbs. to begi 
with. Suppose the case of an excessive quantity of pure cake, more than 
what you think it would be safe to give, how would it act upon the animal ? 
— A. Cloy the appetite, and probably on the next day you might find the 
bowels a little relaxed. 
Q. Do you mean to say there is no chemical action set up in the rumen 
when you give pure cake after the animal has been feeding upon potatoes or 
turnips, or chopped straw? — A. Not necessarily at all. 
Q. Not necessarily ! I am asking you as a scientific man. I ask you whe 
an animal has been feeding upon potatoes or turnips, or chopped clover, an 
you give pure cake, is there no tendency for a chemical action to be set up ? — 
A. I cannot say there would be no tendency, but we only judge of things by 
their effects, and there is no tympanitis produced in those cases. 
Q. That will depend entirely upon the degree of fermentation set up ?— 
A. But there can be no fermentation without a sufficient disengagement of 
gaseous matter, and that cannot escape ; and therefore it accumulates in the 
rumen, and hence you have an explanation of why some of these animals were 
more tympanitic than others. There was a larger amount of gaseous matter 
liberated in some than in others, in proportion to the extension of the cause 
and effect. 
Q. But you have lectured upon this subject, I think, Mr._Simonds? — 
A. Probably. 
Q. In cases of tympanitis, without any reference to cake at all, where it 
has been set up from alteration in food — take the case of a stall-fed ox takmg 
clover — how is the fermentation set up ? — A. Frequently by over-distension 
from green food ; frequently from the animal not thoroughly masticating as 
much as it might do, ' -mips or mangold wurzel, or potatoes, just in the same 
way as we suffer if we eat of them. There is no true digestive process going 
on in the rumen ; there is no gastric juice in the rumen ; there is none till 
you come to the abomasum ; therefore there is not the same amount ol 
controlling power over the fermentative action in the rumen that there is in 
the abomasum, the controlling power of the fermentative action being thf 
secretion of the gastric juice, and the action of the gastric juice on the material 
If we ourselves eat heartily and do not masticate, we know the effect of it is 
that a certain quantity of it, although exposed directly to the action of th( 
gastric juice, is digested while another jDortion of it goes into a state of fermen- 
tation, and we get flatus. ^ 
Q. I will just ask you this question. Probably it is because I do nol 
comprehend your answer that I repeat it. Where you have tympanitis, th( 
result of an operation of an evolvement of gas from a fermentation set up ii 
the rumen, I want to know how that fermentation is occasioned, where it ii 
the result of an alteration of food, for instance ? What is the chemica 
process that goes on there ? — A. It is that which belongs to fermentatioi 
altogether, and you have carbonic acid gas liberated from the material itself. 
Q. Do you mean the new material ? — A. No. 
Mr. Justice Blackburn : I rather think you are at cross-pfirposes. Thi 
witness is explaining how fermentation goes on when once it is instituted 
