610 CERTAIN GASTEIC SYMPTOMS AND FUNCTIONAL DISORDERS. 



tion attracts our attention in the horse, not being immediately 

 attendant on disease of other organs or structural alterations 

 in the stomach itself, the chief are — (a) Indigestion of an 

 acute character, ordinarily the result of the conveyance into 

 the viscus of an extra amount of material ; (h) Chronic indi- 

 gestion, proceeding from various causes, chiefly perversion of 

 gastric activities. 



' A. ACUTE INDIGESTION — GORGED STOMACH — STOMACH 

 STAGGERS. 



Causation. — This form of indigestion, more alarming in its 

 symptoms and development than any other, is chiefly, if not 

 entirely, the result of filling the stomach to repletion with 

 food-materials which from their mechanical bulk and physical 

 unfitness for solution or for being sufficiently broken down and 

 converted into a pulp capable of being passed on, or with 

 such as from their special chemical characters, or the chemical 

 changes which they undergo on being taken into the stomach, 

 are rendered similarly unfit for assimilation. In both instances 

 the resulting phenomenon is over-repletion or distension 

 of the viscus. The chief characteristics of these foods are 

 bulk, indigestibility — not necesssarily innutritiousness — and 

 liability to undergo fermentative changes in the stomach. It 

 may also follow the use of any food conveyed into the stomach 

 without sufficient mastication and incorporation with natural 

 secretions. 



Brewers' grains, partially damaged wheat, ripe vetches, and 

 cooked food generally, I have found particularly liable to in- 

 duce this condition. 



The state of the animal itself, particularly as respects 

 physical exhaustion and period of abstinence from food, also 

 operates materially in determining the existence of acute 

 indigestion. In horses, after prolonged work and an enforced 

 fast, the vital powers generally, and the digestive functions 

 particularly, are much depressed and weakened. Food in 

 such cases may be readily enough taken, and the amount 

 consumed is often in excess of what is usually offered, on the 

 mistaken idea of compensating for the abstinence, and as 

 being needful on account of the extra work done, whereas the 

 opposite is the course which ought to be adopted. In such 



