322 
BOYS* DEPARTMENT. 
Bogs’ department. 
RUMINATION, OR CHEWING THE CUD. 
The process of chewing the cud is always 
connected with a complicated stomach, excepting 
individual instances, as in man and the kangaroo, 
there being at least four distinct chambers, the 
structure of each of which is very different. 
The first, which is similar to the crop or craw of 
birds, is termed the paunch, and serves by its heat 
and somewhat scanty moisture, to prepare the 
herbage for farther change. It is situated on the 
left side, and lined with a rough membrane studded 
with small flat projections. It is inferred to have a 
rotatory motion, from the round masses of hair, 
called bezoar stones, frequently found in it, arising 
from the union of hairs licked off, from time to 
time, by the animal when cleaning itself, and said, 
without proof, to be miraculously medicinal. In 
the chamois, the bezoar stones appear to consist of 
vegetable matter. 
The second is termed the honeycomb bag, king’s 
hood, or bonnet, is much smaller than the paunch, 
and is situated on the right of the lower end of the 
gullet, which opens in common into it and into the 
paunch. On the inside a number of shallow cells, 
like those of a honeycomb, are formed by a project¬ 
ing membrane, and the w T hole is lined with a rough 
scarf skin continuous with that of the gullet and 
paunch. 
The third is the smallest of the four, and is 
named the many-plies, because the inner surface 
rises up into a great many folds, one above the 
other, amounting to about forty in the sheep, and 
about one hundred in the ox, and covered with a 
rough scarf skin. Some of these folds project 
farther than others, there being first two long ones 
on each side, and within these, two shorter, and so 
on. The smallest of them, between the opening 
from the honeycomb bag, are puckered, so as to 
act as a valve between this third chamber and 
the fourth. 
The fourth, which is exclusively the digestive 
stomach, according to Dr. Carus, is called the ren¬ 
net bag, or red. Here, as in the simple stomachs of 
beasts of prey, we find no lining of scarf skin, 
which goes no farther than the many-plies; but a 
soft mucous membrane, which has the property of 
curdling milk, and that of the calf is used for this 
purpose in cheese-making. 
It is important to observe, that, from the inlet of 
the paunch or first stomach, from the termination 
of the gullet, near the junction of the second and 
third stomachs, there runs to the third stomach a 
groove, which I shall call the cud-duct, wdth the 
first, stomach on its left, and the second on its right. 
This cud-duct has thick prominent margins, which 
can be brought to meet so as to form a tube, and 
constitute a continuation of the gullet across the 
second into the third stomach. This duct was as¬ 
certained by M. Flourens to remain always open, 
even when the gullet inlet of the first stomach was 
closed. 
When an ox or a sheep first swallows grass or 
other herbage, it passes chiefly into the paunch, but 
both partly, immediately and successively, into the 
second stomach; but, in the instance of liquids, 
such as broth, a portion always passes into each of 
the four stomachs immediately; the only opening 
into the third stomach being very straight, and 
capable, also, of being quite closed, so as to prevent 
the passage of anything coarse. The reason why 
liquids pass into the third and fourth stomachs is, 
that unless the gullet-inlet into the. first stomach is 
expanded by a morsel of solid food, the cud-duct is 
more open to receive the liquid, and, for the same 
reason, the cud-duct is prevented, by the expansion 
of the gullet-inlet, from admitting solid food. 
In the process of common vomiting, the contents 
of the stomach are, by the action of the midribs 
and the muscles of the belly, ejected in a mass ; but 
in chewing the cud, there is only a small rounded 
pellet brought up into the mouth, so that the process 
is in this very different from vomiting. Bourgelat 
denied the existence of the pellet, and Daubenton 
says it is formed by the second stomach. M. 
Flourens ascertained, beyond all question, that the 
pellet or cud (which is only a different way of 
spelling quid ) is detached from the mass of aliment 
in the paunch, by the latter contracting and pressing 
the mass upwards towards the adjacent inlets of the 
paunch, the many-plies, and the cud-duct, which 
seize and detach from it a portion about an inch in 
diameter. The space, also, which these several ad¬ 
jacent inlets enclose, being round, and its walls in 
motion, the pellet is thereby rounded, and at length 
pushed up into the gullet, and returned to the 
mouth. 
It is very remarkable, that, during the formation 
of the pellet, a very copious flow of spittle takes 
place from the mouth down the gullet, without 
which the pellet, which is rather dry at first, could 
not easily be brought up. The second stomach, 
also, has, by its contraction, the opposite open cells 
brought into contact, so as to form a series of shut 
cells ; an admirable provision for preventing the 
fluids, always more or less present here, from being 
brought up along with the pellet. 
The pellet, when returned to the mouth, is 
minutely chewed and reduced to a half fluid pulp, 
which, on being swallowed, is not solid enough to 
force open the always shut inlet of the paunch, 
and consequently enters the always open inlet of 
the cud-duct, and passes to the third stomach, from 
which it is forwarded to the fourth. The account 
of this process by Blumenbach, adopted by our 
British physiologists, is grossly erroneous. 
In consequence of this complicated process, ani¬ 
mals which chew the cud can digest more effectu¬ 
ally than those which do not, such as the horse, it 
being common for the latter to pass corn quite undi¬ 
gested, a circumstance that rarely happens with 
horned cattle; and hence it is well known to gra¬ 
ziers, that one-third less will be enough for an 
ox than for a horse or an ass. According, how¬ 
ever, to the recent experiments of De Dombasle 
and Biot, this will depend, in the case, at least, of 
roots, such as carrots or potatoes, upon boiling, so 
as to break the globular crust enveloping the nu¬ 
trient matter, which the stomach cannot well effect. 
This matter, formerly called amidvie from its oc¬ 
curring in starch, has been termed by M Biot 
dextrine.—Professor Rennie. 
