Cattle 1853 - Lewis Family Farm

278 CATTLE.
CHAPTER XII.
THE STRUCTURE AND DISEASES OF THE GULLET AND STOMACHS.-
THE CESOPHAGUS, OR GULLET.
The food having been forced along the posterior part of the mouth
by the consecutive action of the tongue and the muscles of the
pharynx, reaches the oesophagus, or gullet. This tube extends from
the mouth to the stomachs, and conveys the food from the one to
the other. In cattle this is true in a double sense ; for not only does
the food descend from the mouth to one of the stomachs, when it is
first gathered, but is returned for a second mastication, and afterwards,
a third time, traces the same path to its destination In the
true digestive stomach. There is some peculiarity of structure in
the oesophagus, in order to prepare it for this increased duty.
We first observe the great thickness and strength of the gullet in
the ox. The outer coat of loose cellular substance is yielding and
elastic. The second coat is a muscular one, and of great substance
and power. Its increased substance enables it to dilate, when the
large pellets of rapidly plucked grass, or pieces of parsnip or potato,
or other hard roots, enter it ; and the same increase of muscular
substance enables it to contract more powerfully on such food, and
pass it on to the stomach. There are two layers of muscles in the
gullet of all our domesticated animals, and the fibres of the outer
and inner layer run in different directions, and with plajn and manifest
reference to the natural food and habits of the animal.
The fibres of both layers of the muscular coat are spiral, but they
wind their way round the gullet in contrary directions, admitting
thus of the lengthening and shortening of the tube in grazing and
swallowing ; offering, perhaps not so much pressure on the food,
and which the lazy mastication and rumination of the animal does
not require ; and permitting a great deal more dilitation when some
large and hard substance finds its way into the gullet.
The inner coat, a continuation of the membrane of the pharynx,
is quite cuticular, smooth, and glistening. It lies in longitudinal
plaits, so wide and numerous as sufficiently to dilate when the food
passes, and to add very little to the obstacle when a portion of food
unusually large is arrested in its passage.