SOME OF THE ANIMALS FED AND SLAIJGHTEEED AS HUMAN FOOD. 565 
On the condensed, though still voluminous record of facts, relating to this branch of 
the inquiry, which these Tables (XVIL- — ^XXIII. inclusive) provide, our space and more 
special objects will allow but a few short comments. 
A few words may fii’st be otfered directing attention to the more prominent points of 
distinction between the different descriptions of animal — Oxen, Sheep, and Pigs as 
regards the amount, and the proportion in the whole body, of their respective organs 
and parts. 
An examination of Table XXIII. will show, that the stomachs and contents, consti- 
tuted in the Oxen about 11-^, in the Sheep about 7^, and in the Pig only about per 
cent, of the entire weight of the body. The intestines and their contents, on the other 
hand, stand in an opposite relation. Thus, of the entire body of the Pig, these amounted 
to about 61 per cent., of that of the Sheep to about 31 per cent., and of that of Oxen to 
only about 2^ pei cent. These facts are of considerable interest, when it is borne in 
mind, that in the food of the Ruminant there is so large a proportion of indigestible 
Woody-fibre, and in that of the well-fed Pig a comparatively large proportion of Starch 
the primary transformations of which are supposed to take place chiefly after leaving 
the stomach, and more or less throughout the intestinal canal. Again, of the masses of 
internal “loose fat,” with its connecting membrane, the Bullocks yielded about 4i per 
cent., the Sheep about 7f , and the Pig little more than Ii per cent. The Pig, therefore, 
with its much less proportion of alimentary organs, has also a much less proportion to the 
whole body, of the fat which surrounds them. With regard to the much larger amount 
of this sort of fat indicated in the Sheep than in the Oxen, it may be remarked, that a 
considerable proportion of the Sheep which contribute to these recorded averages, 
were, compared with the Oxen, in more than a corresponding degree of maturity and 
fatness. 
Takmg together, stomachs, small intestines, large intestines, and their respective 
contents, the Oxen yielded rather more than 14 per cent., the Sheep a little less than 
11 per cent., and the Pigs about 7\ per cent. With these great variations in the pro- 
poition in the diflerent animals, of these receptacles and fu’st laboratories of the food, 
with their contents, the further elaborating organs (if we may so say) with their fluids, 
appear to be much more equal in their proportion in the three cases. This is approxi- 
mately illustrated in the fact, that, taking together the recorded percentages of “ heart 
and aorta, “lungs and windpipe,” “liver,” “gall-bladder and contents,” “pancreas,” 
“ milt or spleen,” and the “ blood,” the sum indicated is for the Bullocks about 7 per 
cent., foi the Sheep about per cent., and for the Pigs about 6-|rds per cent. If from 
this list we w^ere to exclude the blood, which was more than one-third of a per cent, 
lower in the Pig than in the other animals, the sums of the percentages of the other 
items enumeiated would agree even much more closely for the three descriptions of 
animal. 
A rapid sur\ey may next be taken of the general indications as to the influence of 
MDCCCLIX. a „ 
