583 
ON THE PHYSIOLOGY OF THE STOMACHS OF 
RUMINANTS, 
AND THE EFFECTS OF PURGATIVES ON CATTLE. 
By Mr. J, D. Harrison, Lancaster. 
From facts, which attentive observation and practice have 
enabled me to collect, I am led to conclude, that although the 
digestive organs of ruminants present to the eye a very compli¬ 
cated appearance, yet the functions which they perform do not in 
any great degree participate in this complexity of character, but 
that their operations are of a more simple nature. Those of the 
paunch and manifolds I am persuaded are so. The former, by 
its muscular structure, immense size, &c., lined throughout its 
whole internal surface with a strong cuticle, which I am inclined 
to believe does not in itself possess the power of secretion, is evi¬ 
dently intended for the reception of a large quantity of food, and 
the regurgitation of all, or the greater part of its contents, con¬ 
stituting the ‘"cud and the latter, by its internal labyrinth-like 
form, secretion being performed in it by a number of follicular 
glands distributed throughout the whole of its cuticular surface, 
is intended for the retention of the food within its cells a suffi¬ 
cient length of time until it is brought into a more pulpy state, 
and fitter to be acted upon by the abomasum. To these Nature 
has added the manifolds, constructed in a curious and wonder¬ 
ful manner ; and has afforded, by the complicated conformation of 
this organ, an admirable provision for the prevention of unneces¬ 
sary waste of food and time, and the more perfect accomplish¬ 
ment of her object. Had she not given to it that strange pecu¬ 
liarity of structure which distinguishes it from the other stomachs, 
but left it a simple hollow muscle, the food would have passed on 
in an uninterrupted manner towards the abomasum and intes¬ 
tines, and the process of digestion would have been greatly ac¬ 
celerated ; but this acceleration of so important a function would 
have been gained at an immense sacrifice of food; for the rumi¬ 
nants would necessarily have had to take in a larger quantity of 
food in a given time, in order to produce an equal proportion of 
nutritive matter. The digestive organs of cattle, and of milch cows 
in particular, have a great deal to do, in order, while living, and 
when dead, to yield food for man: and this they must do at the 
consumption of as small as possible a portion of the products of 
the earth. An all-wise Creator could alone have designed and 
executed a digestive apparatus apparently so complex, and yet so 
simple and so effectual, as the three first stomachs of cattle, and 
