59S HERNIA, ETC. 



years of age, and a rupture may happen from any violent 

 effort. This hernia, more especially in foals, is occasionally 

 spontaneously reduced. As the animal grows, the omentum 

 and mesentery, being, in proportion, shorter in the adult than 

 in the young animal, are drawn into the abdomen, and the 

 opening closes. 



Treatment. — The animal, having been kept short of food for a 

 few hours, is to be cast, and the contents of the sac carefully re- 

 turned. The reduction effected, the skin is to be drawn from 

 the belly, pinched up, and confined in its folded state by the 

 plain wooden clams, placed upon the sides of the fold, or by two 

 skewers run through it at each extremity of the opening in the 

 abdominal walls, and as close as possible to the surface of the 

 abdominal fascia. The skewers are to be connected, and the 

 doubled skin made into a firm fold by a piece of strong twine 

 wrapped roimd them, firmly but not too tightly, embracing the 

 folded skin. In applying sutures, clams, or skewers, for the 

 reduction of hernia, wherever situated, the objects to be attained 

 are, the union of the internal surfaces of the folded skin, and 

 the production of an exudate to block up the hernial opening. 

 To do these successfully, the external pressure is not to be so 

 great as to cause rapid sloughing of the skin, but to induce 

 adhesive inflammation of the opposing surfaces. If there be 

 occasion to tighten the ligature or apply a fresh one, there is no 

 necessity to cast the animal. I recommend this method, as I 

 have known of cases where very tight ligatures have been 

 applied, and where the skin has rapidly sloughed, result in 

 protrusion of the bowels, and death. 



In calves the hernial sac frequently suppurates, the skin and 

 surrounding structures inflame, the animal goes off its food, and 

 calves with such navels are looked upon as bad thrivers. When 

 means are employed for the reduction of the hernia in cases of 

 this description, the process of consolidation, after the clam or 

 sutures have been removed, is not very satisfactory, and what 

 appears to be a successful result in many instances proves 

 delusive ; the sac filling again, and perhaps to a greater extent 

 than before surgical interference. Animals of tliis kind are often 

 of a tuberculous constitution, and a repetition of the operation 

 is dangerous ; the want of proper tone and vitality in the parts 

 rendering them liable to excessive sloughing, which, by exten- 



