Symptoms. Course. Diagnosis. 391 



ence of marked loud intestinal sounds in the thorax, of tym- 

 panitic sounds, varying at short intervals in intensity and pitch, 

 and heard at the posterior portions of the thorax ; also from the 

 occurrence of intense dyspnea in walking down steep roads or 

 from lying on the side. Diaphragmatic hernia may also 

 lead to asthmatic symptoms (Earner). Loud intestinal sounds 

 are also heard over the thorax whenever peristalsis is much in- 

 tensified and a tympanitic sound over the posterior lower parts 

 of the chest can be heard not infrequently if gas containing por- 

 tions of the large colon have for some reason or other been 

 pushed towards the thorax and have pressed the diaphragm 

 into it. 



Intestinal stenosis in hogs and carnivora is accompanied 

 by gradually increasing obstipation. Eectal exploration reveals 

 a constriction of the rectum somewhere in the pelvis (tumors, 

 enlarged prostate, enlarged uterus, cicatrix). Palpation of tlie 

 abdomen shows a firm, hard body in the intestines, or in the 

 mesentery, diffuse adhesions with the formation of lumps or 

 the enlargement of certain abdominal organs. 



Course. Stricture of the intestines does not lead to any 

 disturbances for some time; after a variable interval of time, 

 however, there occur, in larger animals, particularly in horses, 

 attacks of abdominal pains of variable duration. They recur at 

 first after long intervals, sometimes only after one to two years, 

 but they become more frequent as the disease progresses. The 

 intervals depend to a certain extent upon the nature of the feed 

 and upon the amount of work required of the animals (Earner). 

 As the attacks become more and more frequent and as obsti- 

 pation increases continually, complete and permanent intestinal 

 obturation may occur. In the mean time the animal has become 

 emaciated and death occurs from enteritis, peritonitis, rup- 

 ture or displacement of the intestines, exhaustion. In some 

 cases an animal in a fair state of nutrition may succumb, during 

 one of the first attacks, to rupture of the stomach or intestines, 

 or to enteritis. 



Diagnosis. Stenosis of the intestines and its origin can 

 only be positively diagnosticated by rectal exploration or by 

 palpation of the abdomen. In the absence of positive findings 

 the presence of stricture of the intestine may be assumed with 

 a certain degree of probability from the history of certain pre- 

 liminary diseases, leading to narrowing of the lumen of the 

 bowel, and leading in shorter and shorter intervals to attacks 

 of colic with constipation, especially after the ingestion of dry 

 or firm feed; at the same time general symptoms are absent, 

 and a gradually increasing obstinate obstipation develops in 

 smaller animals. However, the symptoms here enumerated do 

 not permit the exclusion of fecal impaction or thrombosis of in- 

 testinal vessels from other causes. 



