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RUPTURE OF THE STOMACH. 



This may be regarded as the natural termination of the 

 case, continuing unrelieved, of gorged or tympanitic stomach. 

 Up to 1824, the year I published the Second Part of my 

 Veterinary Lectures, I had not seen a case of this lesion. 

 Since then three have occurred in my own practice, and 

 ' The Veterinarian' has brought to light many others. 



The Cause of Distension, and consequent rupture, may 

 prove to be either air or food, or both. In one case, which I 

 did not see until after death, the horse was known to be an 

 inveterate crib-biter ; and the post-mortem appearances were 

 such as to render it most probable that his stomach had 

 burst through the ingurgitation of air. In another case, 

 surcharge with food had evidently produced the mischief. 

 The horse — a trooper in the 1st Life Guards — naturally a 

 ravenous feeder, had stood for eight and forty hours in the 

 stable feeding upon hay and corn, and what litter he could 

 pick up; and the consequence proved to be an attack, on 

 the second night, of a fit of symptoms resembling colic, 

 which, the next morning, was succeeded by cold sweats and 

 tremors of body, quick and small and ultimately imperceptible 

 pulse, convulsions, and death. The accident may happen at 

 pasture, from the stomach becoming distended with grass, 

 the same as is the case in hoven in cattle; of which an 

 instance is related in ' The Veterinarian' for 1834, by 

 Mr. Firman Fuller, V.S., March. Another case is given 

 in 'The Veterinarian' for 1836, by Mr. Goodworth, V.S., 

 Driffield, in which eating haws occasioned it. 



Copious draughts of water upon a full stomach may 

 produce it : of - this Dupuy mentions an instance in the 

 ' Journal Pratique' for 1835. 



Blows, falls, or violent straining, will be apt to occa- 

 sion laceration at a time when the stomach is full. 



Mr. W. C. Spooner, V.S., Southampton, relates the case. 



