338 ON THE SENSIBLE PHENOMENA OF RUMINATION. 
matters afterwards to become subjected to rumination. A silent 
shady retreat is sought after by the timid beast, flying from all 
molestation, avoiding every thing, in fact, that might interrupt 
comfortable rumination. As soon as the act commences, various 
postures are assumed, the most usual one being lying down. 
The camel under such circumstances will often gather his fore 
limbs underneath his body, and lie down upon his breast as 
an ostrich does. M. Colin asserts that in the stable animals 
will ruminate without intermission for half an hour or an hour, 
or longer. But this we cannot confirm; for our own part, we 
should say intermissions are much more frequent. 
Cessation of rumination is a grave affair. In disease, in 
fact, if we do not succeed in re-establishing this primordial act 
of digestion, though it be but in an irregular manner, the con¬ 
sequences may be serious, while the disease itself increases in 
danger. And while cessation of rumination must be accounted 
unfavourable, its return may be hailed as favourable. These 
reflexions teach us that the diet in cases of sickness should 
i 
neither even be unrestricted nor forbidden, since vacuity of 
rumen (no less than that of repletion) could not fail to injure 
digestion. 
Imperfect as the foregoing sketch of rumination must be ac¬ 
knowledged to be, still, from the nature of the subject, we could 
hardly expect more. There are certain sensible phenomena 
which cannot by the imagination even be descried when we con¬ 
sider how digestion enters into every act of it. To give one 
example of this :—At the time that rumination is in its fullest 
activity, if the back of the hand be thrust into the left flank so 
as to press against the rumen, the contractions and displace¬ 
ments taking place in it are to be plainly felt: even the eye 
can discover these undulatory motions connected with rumina¬ 
tion. And yet these motions have escaped the notice of all who 
have seen in the motion of the flank nothing beyond the general 
effect. Although in this general motion, in unity with the act of 
respiration, is concealed an evolution of the rumen observable by 
the attentive eye alone. This is a phenomenon of which -we 
have had additional evidence afforded us by placing animals in 
a stable facing the north, in such position that the rays of light 
impinged upon them at an angle of about 45°. Bv this simple 
means, a shadow has been produced which, descending upon the 
transverse vertebral processes of the loins, so crossed the left flank, 
that, while the entire movement of it which made the shadow 
general shewed the act of respiration, the creeping and gradual 
encroachment of it upon the lower part of the flank indicated the 
contractions of the rumen. 
It has struck us as being possible to carry our investigations 
