362 Veteri7iary Medicine. 



especially when the tortured animal throws itself suddenly and 

 recklessly on the ground. In cattle and sheep this is usually the 

 result of tympany of the rumen, and in solipeds of stomach and 

 intestines. 



Rupture by simple overloading or overdistention is, however, a 

 rare occurrence, and many cases attributed to this are in reality 

 instances of post-mortem lesions, to be identified by the seat of the 

 laceration in the muscular portion, and by the absence of blood 

 clots, exudate, thickening or other sign of inflammation on the 

 torn border. 



Symptoms. These bear a direct relation to the size of the 

 laceration and the mass of alxlominal organs that protrude into 

 the chest. 



In very grave, recent cases, witli a great phrenic rupture and a 

 most extensive protrusion of abdominal organs into the chest, 

 there may be simply the indications of extreme dyspnoea, nostrils 

 and chest widel)^ and persistently distended, nasal mucosa darkly 

 conge.sted, countenance pinched, eyes protruding and fixed, pupil.s 

 dilated, breathing rapid, shallow and oppressed, and in a few 

 minutes the animal staggers and falls in the death agony. 



In cases which are less rapidly fatal, the patient lasting for hours 

 or even days, there occurs, after the accident, deep, difficult and 

 oppressed breathing, but not so violent as to threaten instant suf- 

 focation, or more commonly, these symptoms increase slowly avS 

 more and more of the hernial mass protrudes through the narrow 

 opening into the chest. Tliis form is usually seen only in animals 

 of a specially quiet disposition, and which have not been subjected 

 to active exertion or excitement after the accident and the hernia 

 has increased by slow degrees only. The patient becomes listless, 

 or very restless, paws, looks at his flanks, shifts from one hind 

 foot to the other or even kicks at the abdomen, lies down care- 

 fully, rolls, sits on his haunches (though no more than in other 

 forms of colic), and manifests the anxious, pinched, colic- 

 countenance. The advance of the pain is constant but slow, and 

 usually it is not characterized b}' that intensity which drives the 

 animal to throw himself down recklessly and to roll and kick with 

 violence. There is also usually an absence of the weak running 

 down pulse of hemorrhagic congestion ( thrombosis ) and of the 

 pallor of the surface mucosae which usually attend on the 



