THE DISEASES OF CATTLK. 101 



the fermentation, once commenced in the stomach, goes on until 

 tlie food is in a state of putrefaction, or up to the period when all 

 its gaseous material has been extracted ; ere this takes place, 

 it frequently happens that the animal dies, either by rupture of 

 the rumen, or some portion of the abdominal viscera. In some 

 cases, unrelieved, the distension is so great that the animal dies 

 in a state of suffocation, occasioned by the pressure on the dia- 

 phragm, and other important parts and organs. 



Imperfect indigestion may be occasioned by a deranged 

 condition of the digestive organs, induced by various causes, 

 such as give rise to the samfe phenomena in man, viz., errors in 

 diet ; sudden changes in the same ; thus, if stall-fed animals be 

 turned into a field of clover, or into a luxuriant pasture, they not 

 only eat greedily and create an undue distension of the stomach, 

 but the}' partake of food containing a large amount of aqueous 

 matter, which every one knows is more indigestible than dry 

 food, and such a sudden change of diet is not always to be 

 tolerated. There can be no dispute about the causes of bloat, 

 hoven or tympanites ; it evidently is occasioned by imperfect 

 digestion. As a general proposition, therefore we may con- 

 tend that all indigestible matter may directly or indirectly 

 produce a tympany of the abdominal viscera, and we may also 

 contend that an animal may occasionally become tympanic, 

 under the most intelligent management, owing to some inhe- 

 rent idiosyncrasy* in the local organs, honestly inherited from 

 sire or dam, or their ancestors. Hence, the reader will infer 

 that this dyspepsia, or indigestion, is like various other diseases 

 which seem to appear without any direct cause, transmissible 

 not always, directly, but by predisposition to this and other 

 maladies, which is said " to lurk in breed and conformation " 

 over which we have but little control, other than palliative. 



Treatment of Bloat, Hoven, or Tympanites. — Supposing 

 the abdomen to be distended to its utmost capacity, by the 

 extricated gas, and the animal is oppressed and distressed in 

 the act of breathing, there is no time to be lost ; it is useless to 



* Singularity of Constitution, 

 q* 



