130 LIVERPOOL VETERINARY MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. 
Here is a muscle contrived to clog the operations of its neigh¬ 
bours ; here a blood-vessel adapted to corrupt the blood and pro¬ 
duce disease; here a gland whose object is to secrete a poisonous 
fluid to contaminate the whole system; here a nerve made to 
produce pain; here a plexus of vessels suited to bring on disease. 
Nay, the anatomist perceives at once that all the organs of the 
animal system and their collocation are fitted in the best possible 
manner to produce health. Nay more, that there is nothing 
superfluous in the animal economy, nothing in vain. 
Such being the case, we are led to ask what can be the object 
of this peculiar arrangement of the cerebral blood-vessels of 
ruminants, for we have seen that it must be benevolent ? 
Now it is obvious that the principal object observed in the 
formation and functions of the lower animals is the preservation 
of the species, and for that purpose they are fitted by nature with 
organs of offence and defence best suited to their various habits 
and requirements, and thus maintain the balance of organic 
nature. 
In a state of nature solipeds depend for their safety on their 
pow T er of flight—hence their structure. The small stomach, the 
single digit, and the guttural pouch, found only in them, the 
function of which seems to be to assist the sense of hearing, all 
tending towards the same benevolent end—viz. the preserva¬ 
tion of the individual by flight. 
The ruminants, on the other hand, depend for their safety upon 
their heads and horns—hence the immense development of the 
latter, and hence, as I think, the peculiar arrangement of the 
vascular supply to the former. 
If this be not the object of it, it is more difficult to reconcile 
it with the theory of congestion, from the dependent position of 
the head, seeing that solipeds hang their heads more in the 
gathering of their food, and have no such arrangement. 
Moreover, it is better developed in the sheep and goat 
than in the ox tribe. And these are better suited to live in glens, 
and on rocks and mountains in their natural state than the ox 
tribe; and this special arrangement of the circulatory system 
enables them to do so with greater safety by equalising the blood 
supply to the organ in which consciousness resides. 
Nor is this the only organ in which anatomists find this 
special arrangement of the circulatory system. We find a 
type of this in the vascular pouches called the glomerules of 
Malpighi , and something similar in the vena porta. The blood 
furnished by the coeliac axes and the mesenteries to the organ 
of digestion is brought back by a number of veins into a com¬ 
mon trunk, called the portal vein, which, instead of emptying 
immediately into the vena cava , is distributed in the liver in the 
