TYMPANITIC STOMACH. 265 



least the subjects, are entirely different? Three French 

 veterinarians — Barrier, Herouard, and Farfouillon — are said 

 to have performed this operation, and with success. The 

 place they chose for puncture was the middle of the right 

 flank, thereabouts being the region of the csecum and colon ; 

 though in one case the left side also was penetrated. 

 Should the stomach alone prove the seat of this disorder, it 

 is obvious that the operation so practised must fail. The 

 question in that case would be, can we reach the stomach 

 itself with a trocar; and if that be practicable, how far 

 would it be safe to puncture it ? One French veterinarian 

 proposes we should make use of a curved trocar of extraor- 

 dinary length for the purpose. 



Should the practitioner determine on such an operation 

 — and certainly the case of tympany, unrelievable by other 

 means, appears to justify such determination — I would 

 counsel him to employ a trocar not only a great deal longer 

 than is used in the case of hydrothorax, but hkewise of 

 smaller caliber, and at the part he perforates, to draw aside 

 the skin as much as he can, so as to make his opening a 

 valvular one. If the trocar be not an unusually long one, 

 it will be apt to slip out of the stomach or intestine the 

 moment the latter subsides and recedes from the parietes. 



Since these observations were penned, the operation of 

 trocaring the abdomen has been practised on our own side 

 of the water by Mr. Stewart, Andersonian Veterinary Pro- 

 fessor, Glasgow. In a mare, whose case resembled colic, 

 and in whom there was much tympanitic swelling of the 

 belly with poignant pain, which medicine and other means 

 had failed in relieving, Mr. Stewart thrust a hydrocele tro- 

 car into the middle of the right flank. A large quantity of 

 air escaped, and the intestine was soon emptied. Although 

 so much air escaped, however, the abdomen did not appear to 

 have been diminished. Mr. Stewart then made another punc- 

 ture, lower down, into the csecum — it might be the colon, 

 for in these cases the bowels never hardly occupy their ordi- 

 nary relative positions. He was guided in his choice of 

 place by percussion. On withdrawing the perforator, the 



