RUPTURED STOMACH 



277 



When the disease has its origin in some obstructive disease, severe attacks 

 of colic appear from time to time after feeding, during which the stomach 

 may rupture in the violence of the struggles. 



In this disease treatment is of little avail. In the majority of cases 

 it is an evidence of general decay, and where it arises from causes which 

 obstruct the passage into the bowels, as from tumours in and about the 

 pylorus, there is little to be hoped for. 



RUPTURED STOMACH 



Ruptured stomach is rarely met with in young horses except as a 

 result of extraordinary violence when the stomach has been greatly dis- 



Fig. 99.— Euj.turu.l Stom;n.-h 



tended by food. In many cases the mishap is preceded by structural 

 changes inducing dilatation and weakness of the walls. These may have 

 resulted from a former gastritis, acute or chronic, or from habitual dis- 

 tension in overfeeding, or from the protracted use of bulky and innutritious 

 food, as is so often the case with farm-horses fed upon indifferent provender 

 and other unsaleable products of the farm. Severe work on a full stomach 

 is not rarely responsible for this disease. Heavy draught-horses are the 

 more frequent subjects of this lesion, though it may, and does, occur in 

 horses of all classes. The work of the draught-horse is not so well- 

 regulated as that of the lighter breeds, nor is his attendant, as a rule, as 

 judicious a feeder as that of the hackney or hunter. 



