EXTRACTS FROM GERMAN PERIODICALS. 
513 
water. It has been with him a much vexed question whether 
horses should be given water before, or after feeding. He 
has solved the problem by experiments made upon two horses. 
I • The first horse received four quarts of oats, and immedi¬ 
ately afterward as much water as desired. After the lapse 
of a short time the same was killed, and a post-mortem held. 
In the stomach itself only a liter of oats were recovered 
floating upon much water ; the other three quarts had been 
washed with the water into the intestines, where it existed in 
a state unprepared for assimilation. The digestion here is 
only partial, if indeed occurring at all, so that from the great 
bulk of the food the subject derived but a minimum amount 
of nutriment. 
The second horse received water before being replaced in 
lis stall, and then four quarts of oats. Precisely one quarter 
)f an hour subsequent to the total consumption of the grain 
:his animal was also killed, and examined in autopsy. All of 
he oats were yet in the stomach, and had already been acted 
jpon to a slight extent by the digestive juices. 
From these two practical demonstrations Marlot came to 
he conclusion that the same quantity of oats when fed to 
wo different horses may impart an amount of nourishment 
liffering materially, according as the animals receive water 
irevious or subsequent to feeding. 
This same practitioner instituted another experiment with 
he same purpose in view. He kept a close watch upon the 
evacuations of a horse receiving water after each meal; in this 
Fete material he recovered numerous oats in no way affect- 
id by their passage through the digestive tract .—Norsk. 
Mndmansblad . 
THE OCCULT SPAVIN. 
It is not infrequent that the practitioner meets with a lame- 
less exhibiting all the characteristic symptoms of spavin, and yet 
either by ocular or manual examination is he in a position to 
emark a deviation in the physiological contour of the bones com- 
»osing the articulation of the hock. Such a grouping of symp- 
