i88 dadd's veterinary medicine and surgery 



Tympanitis (Belly filled with Gas). 



Case in Illustration. — At midnight, June 16, 1865, 1 waa ctilleo 

 upon to visit a horse afflicted with this disease. On arriving at 

 the stable, I found the animal on the floor, appTently in great 

 agony. The abdomen was distended with gas jO an immense 

 caj)aeity ; the pulse was feeble ; respirations accelerated, and very 

 laborious; body was bedewed with a cold, clammy perspiration; 

 tips of the ears, cold ; extremities \n a similar condition. Eruc- 

 tations of gas from the stomach, by the way of the mouth, were 

 constiuitly occurring, indicating that the stomach, as well as the 

 intestines, were occupied Avith gas. The animal had bruised him 

 self very badly in struggling, and extensive abrasion of the skin 

 had taken place in various parts of the body. I was informed 

 that the horse had just returned from a very long journey, an«. 

 had not tasted food for sixteen hours. On arriving at the stable, 

 where I found him, a bountiful supply was placed before him. In 

 his weak and exhausted condition, this was about the worst thai 

 could have been done ; for the stomach and digestive organs, 

 sharing, either by direct sympathy or otherwise, with other parts 

 of the body, were not in a fit state, until a period of rest had oc- 

 curred, to digest even a small quantity of food. The cravings of 

 hunger, or a morbid appetite, induced the animal to devour most, 

 if not all, of what was placed before him. The consequence was, 

 the food, instead of undergoing digestion, ran into fermentation, 

 and generated gas known as sulphureted hydrogen. 



Treo.tment. — The animal was urged to rise. I then gave him a 

 colic drench; composed of two ounces of fluid extract of golden 

 eieal, and one ounce of hyposul})liite of soda. The surface of the 

 body was then rubbed with wisps of straw, which produced som« 

 reaction, so that the surface of the patient became warmer. Oc- 

 casionally the animal was led about for a short distance, and then 

 was led back again to the stall, where he would get down, and roll 

 and tumble about, as if in great agony. I administered enemas 

 of soap-suds and salt, but did not succeed in bringing away either 

 feces or gas, and all the gas which escaped from the alimentary 

 cavity passed by the mouth. Two hours after the adtninistration 

 of the first dose, finding that the animal was still unrelieved, I 

 repeated the dose of colic drench, and threw soap-suds into thf 

 rectum. Soon after some feces were v 'led, and with them quan- 



