40 ON DIGITALIS, WITH SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE UPJNE. 



purplish-red at its tip and edges, and is covered on the dorsum 

 by a thick coat, which gives it a leaden hue, the fieces are of 

 their normal form or colour. During the first 12 hours the 

 animals often show signs of transitory intestinal pain. 



At the end of 24 or 30 hours the stage of excitement has 

 passed, and the animals become comatose, their heavy heads 

 hanging down towards the litter, or kept at the bottom of the 

 manger completely insensible to external noises or stimuli, their 

 eyes fixed, without movement or expression, sometimes half 

 covered by the falling lids, and at other times haggard and 

 ready to start from their orbits, the pupils greatly dilated, and 

 the conjunctivae, previously of a bright red, are now of a violet 

 brown, and their secretion dried up. The previous acceleration 

 of the respirations is now succeeded by great slowness, their 

 number descending to 8, 7, or even 6 per minute, and being 

 deep, broken, and trembling. The heat of the body is dimi- 

 nished, the sweats stop, and the skin becomes cold. The faeces 

 are now of a browner character, and covered with a layer of 

 mucus more or less thick. The urine is at first suppressed, but 

 at the end of 36 or 48 hours is passed in abundance, pale, clear, 

 and inodorous, voided very frequently, and in small quantity at 

 a time. There is great muscular weakness, staggering gait, 

 oscillation of the posterior extremities, and a kind of paralysis, 

 which slows their movements. In some there are slight 

 vertigoes, in others spasmodic fibrillary contractions of muscles 

 of the face and of the alae nasi. The severity of the symptoms 

 rapidly increases. The muscular weakness becomes extreme, 

 the legs are no longer able to support the weight of the body, 

 and the animal falls en masse. The respiration becomes more 

 disturbed, sometimes jerking, difficult, and plaintive, most fre- 

 quently very slow, but in some instances slightly accelerated. 

 In some it presents a remarkable intermittency, and its time of 

 stoppage coincides with that of the heart when the latter also 

 intermits.* In some cases 24 to 36 hours before death, there 

 has been noticed a paralysis of the lips, chiefly the upper, and a 

 thick and .stringy saliva flows from the mouth. Diarrhoea 

 appears, and quantities of a very, foetid, soft, blackish paste 



* This also occurs in dogs. — Exp., Appendix. 



