muscular

coat, consisting of two layers of fibres, by which a constant motion is communicated to the stomach, mingling the food, and preparing it for digestion; and the

mucous or villous

, where the work of digestion properly commences, the mouths of numerous little vessels opening upon it, which exude the gastric juice, to mix with the food already softened, and to convert it into a fluid called the

chyme

. It is a simpler apparatus than in the horse or in cattle. It is occasionally the primary seat of inflammation: and it almost invariably sympathises with the affections of the other intestines.

The successive contractions of each portion of the stomach, expose by turns every portion of the alimentary mass to the influence of the gastric juice, and each is gradually discharged into the alimentary canal.

[As]

the chyme is formed, it passes out of the other orifice of the stomach, and enters the first intestine or

duodenum