REVIEW. 
535 
Here, then, is the key to Mr. Gamgee’s objection to the old 
or usual explanation of the causes hindering a horse from 
vomiting, together with the alteration in, or rather addition 
to, this theory which he proposes to make; and a most im¬ 
portant and essential one it must strike every inquirer into 
the matter to be. It is, indeed, as in the case before us, the 
lack of the consideration of the vital phenomena which so 
frequently renders our theories imperfect and unsatisfactory; 
as it is the same omission, or defective or inadequate know¬ 
ledge of these operations, which gives rise to the perplexity 
so apt to be felt in searching out, in the living body, cause 
for effect. 
M. Mignon, as we have seen at page 394 of the ‘ Inquiry/ 
whose “ report” Mr. Gamgee did not see until after he had 
received “ Dr. Sharpey’s hint,” had taken the same view of 
the matter. “ Is not the stomach of the horse that vomits,” 
he asks, “ in conditions which no experiment would repro¬ 
duce? and do you give no consideration to the nervous 
element , which you forget to regard as one of the data of the 
problem ?” After all, however, we find by the ‘ Inquiry,’ 
(p. 379,) that M. Mignon had unequivocally avowed assent 
to Girard’s mechanical doctrine.” Of which, indeed, we 
have had subsequent evidence, as shown in “The Veteri¬ 
narian” for the preceding month, (August,) at pages 450-], 
wherein we find it stated that vomiting is the result of im¬ 
pediment or obstacle set up at the pylorus to the egress of 
matters from the stomach, “ while the cardia becomes dilated 
into the form of a funnel. . . . When this becomes the con¬ 
dition of parts, the act is for the first time performed through 
the contraction of the abdominal parietes alone y favoured by 
the straightened rigidity (direction imjorimee) of the neck.” 
Mr. Gamjee next proceeds in his ‘Inquiry’ to— What 
is the Action of Emetics on the Horse ? Notwith¬ 
standing the general impression and belief that tartar emetic 
—the potassio-tartrate of potash—will not, administered by 
the mouth, excite vomiting in the horse, some French phy¬ 
siologists declare that, if the same be injected into the virus, 
it will produce efforts to vomit. Due consideration, however, 
