RUMINATION IN THE HUMAN SUBJECT. 
213 
Fourth, The sinking of the corpuscles may be slower in serum 
artificially made thinner and lighter, than in serum artificially made 
thicker and heavier. 
Fifth, In the cruor of horses’ blood the corpuscles are more ag- 
gregated, and with more appearance of agglutination between the 
corpuscles, than in very buffy human blood. 
Sixth, There may be a buffy coat, or only a comparatively thin 
one, on the blood of the horse, when that blood has been made 
thinner and its coagulation retarded. 
Seventh, The corpuscles of the horse sink much quicker in his 
serum than the corpuscles of man do in his. 
Eighth, Increasing the proportion of corpuscles in the blood 
hastens coagulation, and prevents or diminishes the formation of 
the buffy coat, more than increasing the serum alone. 
RUMINATION IN THE HUMAN SUBJECT. 
By Mr. Robert Read, V.S., Crediton. 
[From the Lancet.] 
F. L , aged twenty-four, an idiot and an inmate of the Cre- 
diton Union Workhouse, possesses this singular propensity, so 
foreign to man : — He rejects, if offered to him, every kind of com- 
pact animal food, but eagerly devours, with imperfect mastication, 
farinaceous and other vegetable substances, more especially boiled 
potatoes, of which he is very fond; in fact, he subsists almost 
wholly on a vegetable diet, with the exception, occasionally, of a 
little broth. Animal food, when offered to him, is thrown away with 
displeasure. After he has made a repast, he will sometimes, in 
from ten to twenty minutes, begin to regurgitate and to remasticate 
the food over again ; at other times, an hour or even more will 
pass away before any attempt to ruminate is made. The act with 
him is perfectly voluntary, as he can command it or suspend the 
same at his will or pleasure. The act of regurgitating his food 
does not produce any uneasy or disquiet feeling, neither does it 
create the least semblance to vomition, in which the efforts are 
painful and convulsive. His position is generally, when in the 
act of chewing his food over again, fixed, with his back against a 
wall ; he then raises his shoulders, contracts the abdominal muscles, 
so as to press against the stomach, and makes an expiration. Thus 
the food is again, with every appearance of ease, returned to the 
VOL. XVJII. G g 
