ON THE STOMACHS OF RUMINANTS. ' 205 
cattle, both because it is most admirably adapted for the pur¬ 
pose, and also because the seeds which it contains are a valuable 
means for ascertaining the course of your medicine in case of 
death; and, surely, the interests of science must be advanced by 
this certainty, and the practitioner warned, or doubly satisfied 
with his previous practice. From some other remarks made in 
the article alluded to, I come to the conclusion, that it was 
hastily written. There are some inferences drawn from positions 
laid down that do not, in my opinion, at all accord with the 
anatomical acquaintance with the structure of the parts, so 
beautifully displayed in the description given; and I have 
thought that Mr. Sumner must have felt rather bewildered, 
when he found something like a sarcastic reflection, coming 
from such high authority, on the very natural idea he had en¬ 
tertained of directing the medicine into the stomach in which 
was the seat of disease, on the ground that there was a danger 
of mixing a nauseating drug with the food that had still to be 
returned to the mouth to be chewed afresh. Surely you had 
forgotten, that chewing the cud, in all cases like that described 
by Mr. S., is entirely out of the question ; and that, except the 
stomach could be relieved, either by its own natural power, or by 
the stimulus of medicine, rumination would cease, and for 
ever. 
I come now to the proof of what I have before hinted at; viz. 
that the food under certain circumstances does not repass the 
gullet, but goes directly forward to the third stomach. In 
cases like those we have been contemplating, this is decidedly 
the case. Eveiy one knows that the first act of the animal that 
survives an attack of this kind (so far as food is concerned) is to 
eat; and that rumination does not always immediately follow 
this, but that the animal will eat for some length of time before 
he begins to chew the cud. Although eating is, itself, an uncer¬ 
tain symptom, vet, when we hear of it under these circumstances 
we hail it as the sure sign of returning health. Now, where the 
stomach has been previously distended beyond its tone, it would 
not allow of an augmentation in the quantity without adding evil 
to evil, except there were some means of getting rid of the 
incumbrance beyond that of rumination, which has not taken 
place during the time we are supposing. Again, in cases of 
cattle gorging themselves when in health, from being turned into 
a too luxuriant pasture, &c.; if it were not possible to unload 
the stomach except by the ordinary course of rumination, the 
animal would be in these cases invariably lost. These may 
be said to be partly accidental states of the body; but I am of 
opinion, from observations 1 have made on the rumination of 
