GORGED STOMACH, OR STOMACH STAGGERS. 261 



falls asleep, and makes a stertorous noise. All at once he 

 rouses from his lethargy, and violently thrusts his head 

 against the rack or wall of the stable, or any thiug, in fact, 

 that happens to oppose him, owing, seemingly, to some strange 

 sensation felt in his head, and in this posture paws with his fore 

 feet, or performs the same action with them as he would 

 were he actually trotting: evidently all the while unconscious 

 of what he is about. His eye, which at first was full of drow- 

 siness^ now acquires a wild unmeaning stare, or has already 

 become dilated and insensible to light. The respiration is 

 tardy and oppressed ; the pulse slow and sluggish. The 

 excretions commonly diminished. The bowels are consti- 

 pated. 



Cases there are in which the animal experiences a good 

 deal of uneasiness, ancl even pain. The horse, in his gait, 

 reels or swings about, and either manifests extreme heaviness 

 and dejection, or exhibits symptoms of pain, with which some- 

 times he is seized with purgation, as though he had got rid of 

 his distension of stomach, and had become seized with gastric 

 irritation. 



The Diagnosis must be carefully sought after by making 

 every inquiry into the history of the case : knowing that 

 similar symptoms may proceed from an afPection of the 

 brain itself, it is only in this manner that we are likely to 

 fix upon the true seat of disease. The circumstance of 

 the horse having gone long without food and afterwards re- 

 ceiving an abundant supply; or of his being so situated 

 that he has had an opportunity of glutting himself, and, being 

 a voracious feeder, would be sure to do it, would constitute a 

 tolerably unerring director to the stomach in forming a cor- 

 rect diagnosis. 



The Prognosis offers but little hope. Unless we can 

 hit upon, and put into immediate practice, some operation 

 for relieving the stomach of its burthen, fermentation will 

 take place, gaseous distension follow, and rupture be likely to 

 terminate the case. 



The Treatment must, therefore, rest upon the means we 

 possess or can devise of relieving the stomach. Can we vomit 



