Anatomical Changes. 277 



Perforation and continuous irritation of the wall of the 

 stomach first causes pain, which, however, is fairly acute only 

 if the penetration took place more or less rapidly. The injury 

 of the wall of the stomach opens the way to the bacteria which 

 are contained on the foreign body and in the gastric contents, 

 and these microbes then cause inflammation in the neighbor- 

 hood of the penetrating wound. Circumscribed inflammation 

 usually spreads to the serous covering of the injured section 

 of the stomach, even in those cases where the penetrating 

 foreign body remained lodged in the wall of the stomach. If 

 the foreign body penetrated rapidly, the inflammation has an 

 acute character, otherwise it is chronic, but it may also spread 

 to the whole of the peritoneum. A perforating 'foreign body 

 may exceptionally injure a larger blood vessel. 



The motions of the fore-stomachs are interfered with both 

 by the injury to the gastric wall itself, and also by the acute 

 inflammatory process, and later on mechanically by adhesions 

 which are formed (Eber's traumatic paresis of the' rumen). 



Anatomical Changes. Blunt foreign bodies are, as a rule, 

 found either imbedded in the feed-mash in the rumen or they 

 are wedged into the openings of the stomachs or the pylorus. 

 Sand or gravel may become deposited on the internal surface 

 of the rumen, more rarely upon the other sections of the 

 fore-stomachs. (Wilhelm found 120 pounds of sand in the 

 fore-stomachs, the walls of which had become perfectlv hard, 

 socalled "Magenversanduug" [German] Saburra.) Occasion- 

 ally one sees inflammatory changes of the mucosa of the 

 fore-stomachs, exceptionally a circumscribed peritonitis (Boe- 

 der, Wilhelm). 



Pointed foreign bodies cause changes preferably in the wall 

 of the reticulum (traumatic inflammation of the reticulum, 

 reticulitis traumatica). On post-mortem examination loss of 

 substance, with hyperemia in the neighborhood, small hemor- 

 rhages, also purulent inflammation are found, sometimes in 

 the mucosa only, at other times in the deeper tissues of the 

 gastric wall, or there may be a cicatrix only or a fistulous 

 tract surrounded by cicatricial tissue. In other cases the 

 foreign body has penetrated further into the wall of the stomach 

 or has perforated it, then a circumscribed filjrinous peritonitis 

 is found in the immediate neighborhood of the injury, and an 

 agglutination or adhesion of the reticulum to the diaphragm 

 (traumatic diaphragm-reticulum inflannnation) or to the rumen. 

 Frequently one will find a fistulous tract in the cicatricial 

 adhesioiis ^vhich communicates with the reticulum, or the 

 cicatricial tissue includes tough-walled abscesses containing 

 usually ill-smelling pus which is occasionally mixed with food 

 particles. The fistulous tract usually contains the rusty or 

 dark discolored foreign body, but this may also have become 

 disintegrated. 



