ON THE STOMACHS OF RUMINANTS. 203 
relieved herself in my successful cases, or that the medicine 
beino* found in the fourth stomach of those that died was not a 
purely natural result, but rather the eft’ect of accident, arising 
from the state of the other stomachs. 
Now, as there had been circumstances attending divers cases 
of this kind that made me dispute the probability of the first, 
I naturally adopted the second alternative; and, the better to 
assure myself of this, I pursued the following plan : — I pro¬ 
cured leave from a butcher to administer linseed and water to 
various ruminant animals just before they were to be killed, and 
then examined their stomachs directly after; and the result was 
as I expected—that the greater portion of fluids find their way 
at once into the rumen, and that instead of its being, as you state, 
the result of something like accident that fluid is found in the 
rumen at all, it is rather in consequence of this that any ma¬ 
terial quantity passes the rumen by the continuous passage to 
the other stomach. 
I have no doubt that the bulk of all fluids taken by the 
animal in a state of health enters the rumen directly, and as it is 
not at all necessary that they should re-ascend the esophagus, 
they again flow off by the passage to the abomasum, taking with 
them all such portions of the food as are sufficiently comminuted 
to proceed to immediate digestion. In fact, this is the course 
taken by the food itself, under certain circumstances I shall ex¬ 
plain presently. 
You have stated as your opinion, that the reason the food does 
not, after rumination, a second time find its way into the rumen, 
is owing to the circumstance that the gullet cannot act so strongly 
on this pultaceous mass as it did before. Surely, there is not that 
difference betw^een the mass a second time going down the gul¬ 
let when the cow lives on coarse strong hay or straw, for instance, 
and the first time when the cow lives on fine (say short) meadow 
grass, or is eating grains or bran-mashes, &c. as to make this 
of any Consequence, mechanically considered. 
Now, it strikes me, that we are to look for the difference in the 
muscular action and firmer opposition of the fleshy pillars, rather 
than to the action of the reticulum beneath. I am persuaded 
that this stomach, in preparing another pellet to ascend the gul¬ 
let, rejects the descent of the ruminated one, and becomes a 
strong stimulus to the two muscular bodies that guard the en¬ 
trance to the rumen; and obliges the descending pellet to pass 
on to the third stomach. 
Perhaps this may be better understood by my stating, that the 
base of the canal which is formed by the esophagus with the 
two muscular bands, when viewed from the under side, presents 
