420 The Care of Animals 



nausea and vomiting, colicky pains, purging, bloating, 

 and often inflammation of the bowels. (2) The other 

 group of symptoms results from the absorption of 

 some poisonous substance that seems to paralyze the 

 nerve centers, especially those that control the beat- 

 ing of the heart and the breathing. There is great 

 depression and muscular weakness ; the animal, if able 

 to walk, goes with a staggering gait ; it usually lies 

 down some time before death, and often dies without a 

 a struggle, apparently "tired to death." There is often 

 a peculiar vacant stare in the eyes, and sometimes 

 delirium. In some animals, there may be a combination 

 of these two forms of poisoning. 



When animals die from poisoning as the result of 

 irritation of the bowels, the mucous membrane of the 

 stomach and small intestine is always congested and 

 red, and often severely inflamed ; in fact, the whole 

 alimentary canal shows evidence of irritation in being 

 unusually red and with blood-vessels prominent. When 

 death is due to some poison which is absorbed and acts 

 upon the nerve -centers, there are practically no abnor- 

 mal conditions to be found after death; although the 

 muscle of the heart is frequently congested, giving it 

 a striped appearance, and in some cases there may be 

 slight irritation of the bowels. The chemical nature of 

 the poisons which are supposed to exist in plants is not 

 well known, very little work having been done on 

 them, and it is practically impossible to isolate them 

 from the other contents of the stomach in an ordinary 

 chemical examination. 



The treatment of poisoning must depend on the symp- 



