TYMPANITIC STOMACH. 263 



stitutes the disorder iu them called hove or hoven, or blown; 

 tlie ordinary cause of which is overloading the paunch with 

 young, succulent, growing herbage, in particular clover, from 

 whose subsequent fermentation gas is liberated in such 

 volumes that the animaFs body becomes tympanitic to a most 

 enormous degree. In the horse, however, who has no 

 rumen, veritable hove is a rare occurrence -, though it is by 

 no means uncommon to find him the subject of tympany or 

 wind -colic. I never, probably, shall see again so many 

 blown or hoven horses as I witnessed in the march of the 

 British army from Waterloo to Paris, in 1815. A brigade 

 of horses had been allowed to feed in a field of growing 

 wheat, and the consequences were, that several among them 

 swelled in body, turned almost frantic with pain, and shortly 

 died. In the stable, tympany is of rare occurrence; unless it be 

 in crib-biters, who are sufi'ered to pass their time in suck- 

 ing in air ; and in them the complaint is common enough. 

 Such horses will gulp down air until their bellies become 

 swollen to a great extent ; they will then, from experi- 

 encing some uneasiness, begin to paw and strike with their 

 fore feet, and lay down and roll, and rise again, as if they 

 were suiBPering from gripes. Their complaint is manifest 

 enough, and rarely requires anything beyond a good smart 

 trot ; the usual effect of which is, to cause the expulsion of 

 wind, and more or less dung along with it, j^er anum. Cases, 

 however, have occurred to me, the subjects of which were 

 not crib-biters, and yet there was that degree of virulence 

 and obstinacy in their symptoms which appeared to warrant 

 the opinion, that there existed something beyond ordinary 

 spasms or gripes, whereto the symptoms were in all other 

 respects similar. One of these I will here relate. 



A young mare was admitted, Sept. 1824, into the Royal 

 Horse Infirmary at Woolwich, for " gripes.^'' A gallon of 

 blood had been abstracted prior to her admission. The 

 symptoms were of the most violent and alarming descrip- 

 tion. She sweated profusely from paroxysms of agonizing 

 pain, worked hard and quick at the flanks, and had a 

 thready and almost imperceptible pulse. The following 



