Buffon's Natural History. Volume 05 (of 10): Containing a Theory of the Earth, a General History of Man, of the Brute Creation, and of Vegetables, Minerals, &c. &cBuffon, Georges Louis Leclerc, comte de
History
Buffon's Natural History. Volume 05 (of 10): Containing a Theory of the Earth, a General History of Man, of the Brute Creation, and of Vegetables, Minerals, &c. &c
Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc, comte de
Natural history
Quadrupeds do not all drink in the same manner, though they are all
equally obliged to seek with the head for the liquor, which they cannot
get any other way, except the monkey, macaw, and some others, that have
hands, and consequently drink like men, when a vessel is given to them
which they can hold; for they carry it to their mouths, inclining the
head, throwing down the liquor, and swallowing it by the simple motion
of deglutition. Man usually drinks in the same manner, because it is
most convenient; but he can drink many other ways by contracting the
lips to draw in the liquor, or dipping the nose and mouth deep enough
into it for the tongue to be environed therewith, and then perform
the motions necessary for swallowing; he can also take in a fluid
by the lips alone; and lastly though with more difficulty, stretch
out the tongue, and, forming a kind of little cup, carry a small
quantity of water into the mouth. Most quadrupeds could also drink in
several different ways, but, like men, they chuse that which is most
convenient. The dog, whose mouth is very large, and the tongue long and
thin, drinks by lapping, or licking, forming with the tongue a kind
of cup or scoop, which fills each time with a tolerable quantity of
liquor, and so satisfies his thirst; and this mode he prefers to that
of wetting the nose. The horse, on the contrary, whose mouth is small,
and whose tongue is too short and thick to form a scoop, and who always
drinks with more avidity than he eats, dips the mouth and nose quickly
and deeply into the water, which he swallows largely by the simple
motion of deglutition; but this forces him to drink without fetching
his breath, whereas the dog breathes at his ease while he is drinking.
Horses, therefore, should be suffered to take several draughts,
especially after running; when respiration is short and quick, they
should not be suffered to drink the water too cold, because that,
independent of the cholic, which cold water frequently occasions, it
sometimes brings on rheums, and often lays the foundation of a disorder
called the glanders, the most formidable of all diseases to which this
species of animals are subject; for it is known, that the seat of the
glanders is in the pituitary membrane, and that it is consequently a
real cold, which causes an inflammation in this membrane. Travellers,
who give us a detail of the maladies of horses in warm climates, as
in Arabia, Persia, and Barbary, do not say that the glanders are so
frequent there as in cold climates, and it is for this reason the
conjecture arises, that this malady is occasioned by the coldness
of the water, because the animals are obliged to keep the nose and
nostrils a considerable time under water, which would be prevented by
never giving it to them cold, and by always wiping the nostrils after
they have drank. Asses, who fear the cold more than horses, and who
resemble them so strongly in the interior structure, are not so subject
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