390 
RUMINATION, &C. 
i 
as certainly stops it when the upper sac begins to be empty, 
and thus secures the perfection of the maceration, and the more 
easy grinding down of the food under the teeth, and the sub¬ 
sequent extraction of all the nutritive matter. 
But during all this while the food will undergo, to a con¬ 
siderable degree, the process of fermentation, and in that pro¬ 
cess much acid will be eliminated, and this will become a 
source of great irritation and annoyance. How beautiful is 
Nature's contrivance to prevent this, and even to extract good 
out of evil I 
The fluid which is secreted by the rumen consists chiefly of 
an alkaline principle—I believe soda. This, previous to the 
commencement of the fermentation, combines with and dissolves 
certain portions of the vegetable matter contained in the stomach. 
It is an active and beneficial solvent. When the acid produce 
of fermentation begins to accumulate, it performs another office— 
it combines with it, and converts it into a'neutral salt, and that 
neutral salt, once formed, is useful. It stimulates the muscular 
fibres of the coats of the stomach, and increases their action in 
hurrying the food along, in order to be discharged from the 
stomach. So admirable are Nature’s ways ! 
, The food is re-masticated, and returned again to the oesophagus; 
and now, either from some instinctive influence, or owing to its 
having assumed a more pulpy consistence, it no longer forces 
open the muscular pillars, but passes forward into the maniplus. 
The semi-fluid portion goes farther—it runs on immediately into 
the abomasum, while the parts that have not yielded to the ma- 
cerative power of the rumen, or that have escaped the action of 
the grinders, are caught up between the folds of the maniplus, 
and by the united action of the muscular fibres of the leaves, 
and the hard prominences with which the cuticle covering the 
leaves is beset, they, at length, become perfectly comminuted, 
and then, having been reduced to a pulpy mass, they are allowed 
to pass into the abomasum. 
Here it is that the food meets with the gastric juice secreted 
from the villous coat, and by which it is dissolved and reduced 
to one homogeneous mass, called chyme. It then passes through 
the pylorus into the duodenum, where it meets with the biliary 
and pancreatic fluids, and by their influence, and some other 
power, whether chemical or vital, the chymous mass is separated 
into the chyle or nutritive part, and the faeculent, or innutritive 
part. The chyle is absorbed by the lacteals, and conveyed by 
means of the thoracic duct into the system ; the faeculent matter 
passes through the intestines, and is voided peranum. 
