284 DISEASES OF THE STOMACH. 



excite an attack of gastritis. The following account is 

 extracted from some cases transmitted to 'The Veteri- 

 narian' for 1838, by N. B.:— 



Mr. B. (Bean ?) during the autumn of 1826, was called 

 to six cases of gastritis, occasioned by the horses eating haws 

 from the thorns in the hedge-rows. The symptoms were 

 similar in them all. Pulse thready, and scarcely per- 

 ceptible ; extremities cold ; skin covered with dewy perspira- 

 tion ; respiration remarkably quiet. At intervals, large quan- 

 tities of fluid were ejected from the stomach, having a pecu- 

 liar acid odour : medicine in the fluid form was similarly 

 discharged. Bleeding and medicine proved of no avail: the 

 animal died six or eight hours after Mr. B. had been called in. 

 Patches of inflammation appeared upon the duodenum. The 

 stomach and omentum had a purple appearance ; and, when 

 the former was laid open, a hard substance was found 

 within, about the size of a goose-egg, composed of haws and 

 fragments of thorns, possessing a rough surface. The 

 villous membrane presented evidence of the intensest inflam- 

 mation, and around the pylorus were various marks of 

 laceration caused by the rough substance within. The years 

 1825-27 produced no such cases: a circumstance that has 

 since led Mr. B. to connect their occurrence (in 1826) with 

 the scarcity of after-grass which then existed : the horses 

 being driven in consequence to browse on the hedges. 



Mr. Tombs was called to a horse suff'ering from gastritis, 

 caused by over and improper feeding. The stomach, after 

 death, proved inflated to a great degree with gas, and was 

 "exactly like a blown-up bladder, '^ occupying a large portion 

 of the epigastric region. It also contained half a gallon of 

 split beans, but slightly masticated, and not at all digested. 

 Its villous coat was intensely inflamed in patches. '^ — ' Vete- 

 rinarian,' vol. XXV, p. 637. 



