VENTRAL HERNIA. 559 



Treatment. As a preventive measure, cows should not be placed 

 with the fore feet higher than the hind. Unless strangulation occurs, 

 all treatment should be avoided ; the difficulties during labour are 

 said to be lessened by dilating the vagina. Another reason for 

 avoiding operation is that the hernial contents are often attached 

 to the sac, a condition indicated by the latter being markedly drawn 

 inwards when the hind-quarters are raised. Should incarceration 

 necessitate operation, or the owner desire it, the animal is chloroformed, 

 an incision is made in the skin over the swelling, and the hernial 

 sac ligatured in sections, that is, if the contents of the sac are clearly 

 non-adherent. Otherwise the inner coats must be cautiously cut 

 through, the intestine or bladder separated, the sac brought together 

 with several stitches, and the skin first shortened sufficiently and 

 then sutured. A case treated in the Dresden clinique shows that 

 it is possible to effect a cure, even under unfavourable circumstances, 

 the urinary bladder had been incised, but was immediately sutured, 

 and recovery followed. The purse-string suture may sometimes be 

 used to advantage. 



X.— VENTRAL HERNIA (HERNIA VENTRALIS). 



Whilst the hernias hitherto described are due to dilatation of 

 natural openings, others caused by solutions of continuity in the 

 abdominal walls (but not of the skin) are described as ventral hernias. 

 Such breaches are either caused by external injuries, like kicks, horn 

 thrusts, the impact of blunt bodies, collisions with the carriage pole, 

 staking of the abdomen, and falling on blunt objects, or they may 

 result from excessive muscular contraction during parturition, &c. 

 Sometimes they attain very large dimensions, as shown by Eberhardt 

 and Dette's cases, and by a mare Moller had under observation 

 (Fig. 399). Hertwig believed that congenital fissures in the walls 

 of the abdomen sometimes caused ventral hernias. 



The structures forming the hernial sac vary with the position 

 and extent of the rupture. In many cases the contents lie beneath 

 the skin and panniculus or tunica abdominalis, sometimes immediately 

 below the skin, the intestine or omentum or both having passed 

 through a rupture of the peritoneum and abdominal muscles. The 

 hernia usually contains intestine, though Noack reports two cases 

 in the cow where it was above the udder, and contained portions 

 of the uterus. One, operated on by Guittard, was in the right flank, 

 and contained the abomasum. Gerlach and Schmiele have seen 

 hernias containing portions of the liver. A pig described by Frick, 



