THE HOOVB. 101 



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CHAPTER XXV. 



THE HOOVE, HOVEN, OR BLOWN. 



This disease is a distention of the rfimen, or first stomach, by the 

 gas which is extracted from certain substances undergoing the process 

 of fermentation within it. The herbage is hastily gathered at first, 

 and received into the rumen, in order to undergo there a process of 

 maceration, by means of which it may be more perfectly ground 

 down, and all its nutritive matter extracted when it is subjected to a 

 second mastication. 



The rumen has been described as divided into various compart- 

 ments, and its coats containing a strong muscular structure* By the 

 action of these muscles the food is made slowly to traverse these 

 compartments in the order in which it was received ; and the journey, 

 in the ordinary state of health, occupies sufficient time for the herbage 

 to be to a certain degree macerated or softened, but not for that pro- 

 cess of fermentation to be set up to whicli all vegetables are liable. 



Supposing an ox to be suddenly turned into new and luxuriant 



{(asture, he sets to work, and gathers the herbage rapidly and greedi- 

 y ; so much so that the stomach is unable to propel forward the dif- 

 ferent portions of food as they are received, but becomes overloaded 

 and clogged, and at length ceases altogether to act upon its contents. 

 The food remains longer in the stomach than nature designed that it 

 should, and it begins to ferment ; and while fermenting throws out a 

 quantity of gas, which distends the stomach almost or quite to burst- 

 ing. Thence arises the danger of sudden change of pasture from an 

 inferior to a better quality, and the numerous cases of distension of 

 the stomach and death which occur when the fog-grass is plentiful 

 and succulent, or the beast has without preparation or care been 

 turned upon clover or turnips. 



Some animals, however, are subject to hoove, but in a slighter 

 degree, without this change of pasture. Many a weakly cow has 

 occasional swellings of the paunch where there has been little or no 

 change of food. The stomach, also, is subject to disease — it sympa- 

 thises with disease of every other part; and one of the first and most 

 frequent results of an unhealthy state of it is the production of an 

 acid, which wonderfully accelerates and increases the process of fer- 

 mentation and the development of gas. Hence it is that distension 

 of the stomach is an accompaniment of almost every malady to which 

 cattle are liable. No case of difficult parturition, or of dropping after 

 calving, or of milk fever, occurs without some degree of distension 

 of the paunch, either from the stomach being so weakened as to be 

 unable to force the food along, or from its secreting this unnatural 

 and unhealthy acid, so favourable to the progress of fermentation. 

 The symptoms of hoove are sufficiently known. The beast seems 

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