On some points relating to the anatomy and habits of the Bactrian camel (Camelus bactrianus), and on the presence of intestinal glands not before noticed / by Edwards Crisp.

  • Crisp, Edwards, 1806-1882.
Date:
[1865]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On some points relating to the anatomy and habits of the Bactrian camel (Camelus bactrianus), and on the presence of intestinal glands not before noticed / by Edwards Crisp. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    than six gallons * daily, and in winter about three gallons. There is one remarkable feature in the male Camel that is not, I think, generally known. On the back of the neck, just behind the ears, are two glandular elevations that furnish, especially during the rut- ting season, a very offensive secretion. This, as will be seen by the paper smeared with it, is of a dark colour, and very like the sepia of the Cuttlefish (Octopus), and might, I believe, be used advantageously as a pigment. I find that this secretion is from a large number of agminated glands seated under the skin in the situation above named. They are about 1th of an inch in length and ^-th of an inch in breadth, and are represented in Plate IV. In speaking of the generative function, with which these glands are intimately connected, let me notice the mode of copulation of the Camelidce, known to many. The male, often after very un- gallant usage to his spouse, compels her to drop down in her usual position when at rest, and in this way copulation is accomplished. In my paper “ On the Dentition and Mode of Copulation of the Elephants” (Lancet, 1854, p. 198), I believe that I was the first to point out the mode of copulation of these animals. The female places her head upon the ground, elevates her haunches, and thus the act of copulation is affected. I am not acquainted with any other quadrupeds in which the females assume the position I have described in the Elephants and Camels, including the Llamas. One great source of difficulty in this investigation has been the confusion that has arisen respecting the names of the two species of Camel, Dromedary and Camel being applied to both by different authorities. It would be well, I think, if the term Dromedary were abandoned, and the names One- or Two-humped Camel used in its place. Daubenton, in Buffon’s ‘ Histoire Naturelle,’ 1744, vol. xi. p. 255, has given a long description of the anatomy of the Camel, with a number of measurements of the bones and of various parts. He represents the stomach as consisting of five compartments; and he gives the length of the alimentary canal, exclusive of the caecum, as eighty French feet. He says that the two races (Camel and Dro- medary) mix, and that their progeny is the most vigorous. Sir E. Home (Phil. Trans., 1806) describes the stomach of a Camel that was killed at the London College of Surgeons, 1805. “ The animal was supplied with a large quantity of water before death, and this fluid was found in a pure state in the water-bags; these cavities, moreover, contained none of the food.” In the first volume of our * Proceedings,’ part 2, 1832, p. 126, Mr. Spooner gives some notes on the Dromedary (Catnelus dromedarins, Linn.)—the animal I have before spoken of that died of dropsy. “ In the structure of the stomach he found nothing to add to the accounts already given by Daubenton and Sir E. Home. He stated, however, that the cells of the first stomach contained food, and, like * The Elephant, as I am informed by tho keeper, will sometimes in hot weather drink twenty pailfuls of water daily, although the capacity of its stomach is only about one-third that of the Camel. [2]