238 
ANIMAL PATHOLOGY. 
contact with the mucous secretion of that viscus. Observe the 
action of these nerves in projecting, as it were, the different 
portions of the food over the valve-like shelf which separates 
the rumen from the reticulum ; or which causes the reticulum 
and the cud-duct to contract upon each successive portion, and 
to compel it to reascend the gullet — and, after that, the tritu- 
ration and grinding down of the hardest and the toughest fibres 
between the leaves of the manyplus. In the distribution of the 
gastric nerves over the complicated stomachs of these animals, 
and the beautiful consentaneous action between every part of 
the complicated machine, the student will have much to employ 
and interest and instruct him. 
The sensitive influence of these nerves has undoubted exist- 
ence in the first three stomachs, yet modified and moderated by 
the cuticular coat with which they are lined ; but in the aboma- 
sum or fourth stomach it is fully developed. 
The Branches of the great Spinal Organic Nerve continued . — 
The right gastric nerve distributes filaments about the cardiac 
orifice, and then divides into several branches. Some go to the 
smaller curvature — I am speaking now of the stomach of the 
horse, where they anastomose with ramifications from the left 
nerve — others supply the greater curvature. They spread over 
the under part of the stomach — they give branches which can be 
traced to the spleen, and others which reach and entwine around 
the pyloric orifice, and they are not lost until they have tra- 
velled far down the duodenum. Other filaments are detached 
to the cceliac plexus of the semilunar ganglion, and then, in com- 
pany with the ganglial nerves and the arteries of the respective 
viscera, find their way to the liver and the spleen. 
The left nerve, after being distributed freely over the stomach, 
and anastomosing with the right branch, sends a variety of fila- 
ments of considerable size to join the hepatic plexus, and to 
help to form the semilunar ganglion. It is here lost as a dis- 
tinct nerve ; but its influence, motor and sensitive, may be traced 
in the greater number of the abdominal viscera. We shall 
better speak of this when we have considered the function of 
the ganglial nerves. 
The Duodenum . — In this intestine the process of chylification 
is performed, or at least begun. The bile and the pancreatic 
fluid are received into it, and the separation of the nutritive and 
excrementitious portions of the ingesta are commenced. In the 
horse, a more important duty is discharged. From the com- 
paratively small size of the stomach of that animal, and the 
cuticular construction of a great part of it, the previous process 
of chymification is very imperfectly accomplished, and the 
