Transcriber’s Note:
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Second in importance to pulmonary complaints in solipeds; equal inruminants. Extent of digestive organs and character of food, in carnivora,herbivora, and omnivora. Ruminant’s stomachs. Gastric fermentation.Foreign bodies. Torpor. Unwholesome fodder.
In the horse these maladies are only second in importance tothose of the respiratory organs, while in ruminants they areequally frequent and important. The varying susceptibility ofthe digestive organs to disease in different families and the specialproclivity of different parts of these organs may be, in great part,explained by the great variation in the food, by the relative extentof the gastro-intestinal surface, and by the amount of workdevolving on the respective viscera.
In carnivora the entire gastro-intestinal surface is little morethan half the area of the skin, for their rich animal food does notrequire a prolonged retention and an elaborate series of intricateprocesses to insure digestion and absorption. This system of organsis accordingly less liable to disorder in carnivora than inherbivora and omnivora. Add to this that the carnivorousstomach is very capacious relatively to the intestine, that the digestionof the great bulk of the food (nitrogenous elements) isnearly completed in this viscus, and that the contents of this organare easily and completely discharged by vomiting wheneverthey prove irritating, and we have ample explanation of the comparativeimmunity of these animals from digestive disorders.
The herbivora stand at the opposite extreme, the gastro-intestinalsurface being over double the area of the skin in the horse,and nearly three times that extent in the ox. The hard, fibrousand comparatively innutritious vegetable food of these animalsnecessitates its prolonged retention in the alimentary canal inorder to the completion of digestion and the absorption of thenutritive constituents. Hence the great liability of the herbivorato diseases of the digestive orga