Outline of the Stomach of a full-grown Cow.
[These engravings, illustrative of the comparative sizes of the different stomachal cavities, are copied from original drawings taken from preparations of the stomachs which I made expressly for this purpose.]
In all herbivorous animals, and especially those of the ruminating kind, the alimentary canal is of an enormous length; measuring in a full grown ox, as much as sixty yards. The paunch, in such an animal, will hold from fifteen to eighteen gallons.
Blumenbach observes, that the process of rumination supposes a power of voluntary motion in the œsophagus; and, indeed, the influence of the will throughout the whole process is incontestible. It is not confined to any particular time, since the animal can delay it according to circumstances, even when the paunch is quite full. It has been expressly stated of some men, who have had the power of ruminating, that it was quite voluntary with them. Blumenbach knew four men who ruminated their food, and they assured him they had a real enjoyment in doing it: two of them had the power of doing or abstaining from it at their pleasure.
A case of human rumination occurred some years ago at Bristol, the particulars of which are minutely recorded in the 'Philosophical Transactions.' It seemed, in this instance, to have been hereditary, as the father of the individual was subject to the same habit. The young man usually began to chew his food over again, within a quarter of an hour after eating. His ruminating after a full meal generally lasted about an hour and a half; nor could he sleep until this task was completed. The victuals, upon its return, tasted even more pleasantly than at first; and seemed as if it had been beaten up in a mortar. If he ate a variety of things, that which he ate first, came up again first; and if this return was interrupted for any length of time, it produced sickness and disorder; nor was he ever well till it returned. These singular cases are caused, no doubt, by some abnormal structure of the interior of the stomach. No account has yet been given of the dissection of an individual so constituted.
When cattle are at rest, or not employed in grazing or chewing the cud, they are observed frequently to lick themselves. By this means they raise up the hair of their coats, and often swallow it in considerable quantities. The hair thus swallowed gradually accumulates in the stomach, where it is formed into smooth round balls, which, in time, become invested with a hardish brown crust, composed, apparently, of inspissated mucilage, that, by continual friction from the coats of the stomach, becomes hard and glossy. It is generally in the paunch that these hair-balls are found. They vary in weight from a few ounces to six or seven pounds. Mr. Walton, author of an 'Account of the Peruvian Sheep,' makes mention of one that he had in his possession which weighed eight pounds and a quarter. This hair-ball had been taken from a cow that fed on the Pampas of Buenos Ayres. It was of a flat circular shape, and measured two feet eleven inches and a half in circumference; two feet eight inches round the flat part; nine inches diameter also in the flat part; eleven inches diameter in the cross part; and, on immersing it in water, it displaced upwards of eight quarts, which made its bulk correspond to 462 cubic inches. The digestive functions are sometimes seriously impaired by these concretions; a loss of appetite ensues, and general debility.
In the Museum of Daniel Crosthwaite, there is a very extraordinary ball of hair, taken from a fatted calf only seven weeks old. The ball of hair, when taken out of the animal's stomach, and full of moisture, weighed eleven ounces. The calf was fatted by Daniel Thwaite, of Dale Head Hall, within six miles of Keswick; and slaughtered by John Fisher, butcher, Keswick. The calf was a particularly healthy animal.
Before closing this brief sketch of the digestive apparatus of the ox, it may not be uninteresting to quote some of the quaint speculations of Nathaniel Grew on this subject, from his 'Comparative Anatomy of Stomachs and Guts.'
He says: "The voluntary motion of the stomach is that only which accompanies rumination. That it is truly voluntary, is clear, from the command that ruminating animals have of that action. For this purpose it is, that the muscules of their venters are so thick and strong; and have several duplicatures, as the bases of those muscules, whereupon the stress of their motion lies. By means whereof they are able with ease to rowl and tumble any part of the meat from one cell of the same venter to another; or from one venter to another; or from thence into the gullet, whensoever they are minded to do it; so that the ejectment of the meat, in rumination, is a voluntary eructation.
"The pointed knots, like little papillæ, in the stomachs of ruminating beasts, are also of great use, namely, for the tasting of the meat. The inner membrane of the first three venters is fibrous (like the gustatory papillæ of the tongue) and not glandulous; the fourth only being glandulous, as in a man. Of the fibres of this membrane, and the nervous, are composed those pointed knots, which are, both in substance and shape, altogether like to those upon the tongue. Whence I doubt not, but that the said three ventricles, as they have a power of voluntary motion, so, likewise, that they are the seat of taste, and as truly the organs of that sense, as is the tongue itself."