568 FOREIGN BODIES IN THE DIGESTIVE TRACT 



SURGICAL DISEASES OF THE STOMACH 

 ANT) BOWELS. 



I.— FOREIGN BODIES IN THE DIGESTIVE TRACT. 



Sharp substances, like needles, wire, nails, &c., accidentally 

 present in the food are sometimes swallowed by oxen, less often 

 by sheep and goats, and give rise to injuries both of the digestive 

 tube and of other parts, like the pericardium and heart. Horses 

 are not so often affected, though in one case a quantity of nails, 

 buttons, and screws were found in the colon of a horse, their corroded 

 condition showing they had already lain there for a long time. In- 

 digestion in calves and lambs is often produced by hair, twine, wool, 

 or clover balls ; and in pigs by bristles. Calves sucking cows fed 

 partly on cotton cake or meal sometimes suffer from indigestion. 



Dogs often swallow stones, corks, balls, or coins which they have 

 picked up or had given them to carry ; whilst in the stomachs of 

 oxen and horses portions of probangs or balling-guns are sometimes 

 found. 



Hahn, while making a post-mortem of a horse, found an abscess in 

 the spleen, containing a piece of wood 13 inches in length and -| inch in 

 thickness. In one case a pig swallowed a castrating knife 4 inches in 

 length, which remained lying in the stomach for two months without 

 producing any marked disturbance. A similar experience in the dog is 

 related by Iwersen. A sporting dog swallowed a pocket-knife while carrying 

 it to its master, but vomited it again nineteen days later. Seven stones, 

 of a collective weight of 5 J ounces, were found in the stomach of a New- 

 foundland dog. The organ was greatly distended, its mucous membrane 

 thickened and covered with warty growths. The dog had been accustomed 

 to play with stones, tossing them into the air, and again catching them, 

 and this had at length proved fatal, a piece of coal having blocked the 

 ileo-csecal valve and occluded the bowel. A cat swallowed a glass-headed 

 hair-pin, 4| inches long. The head had entered the stomach, but the 

 sharp end remained in the oesophagus, and led to perforation and death. 



The danger thus occasioned is of a double nature : sharp foreign 

 bodies, like needles, nails, &c, perforate the wall of the stomach 

 or bowel, and lead to fatal peritonitis, or they penetrate the diaphragm 

 and produce septic pericarditis. This is the rule in cattle, where 

 such bodies enter from the reticulum. It often happens that, at the 

 point of injury, the stomach or bowel becomes adherent to the 

 abdominal wall, leading to perforation outwardly and escape of the 



