DISEASES OF THE DIGESTIVE ORGANS 171 



ASCITES. DROPSY OF THE ABDOMEN. 



This may be a result of peritonitis, of obstruction to the flow 

 of blood through the intestinal (portal) veins, as in diseased 

 liver, spleen, pancreas, mesenteric glands, valves of the heart, 

 etc., or, finally, it may depend on an unduly watery state of 

 the blood as in certain parasitic and other disorders. 



Symptoms. — Distended (pot) belly, loose and pendulous, 

 with hollow flanks, or if the liquid is more abundant, rounded 

 and tense. Fluctuation is easily felt if pressure is made at two 

 different points, and percussion elicits a dull dead sound in 

 place of the nonnal drum-like resonance of the bowels. The 

 urine is scanty, appetite and digestion impaired, breathing deep 

 and excited, condition poor and getting worse, hair dry, rough, 

 erect, and often shedding, and swellings appear along the lower 

 part of the body into the limbs and chest. 



Treatmejit. — Find out and remove if possible the true primary 

 cause. When that has ceased to act employ purgatives, but 

 especially diuretics (digitalis, oil of turpentine, iodide of potas- 

 sium, squills, colchicum, nitre, etc.), in as full doses as the 

 strength will permit, with tonics (sulphate of iron, gentian, and 

 nux vomica), and apply tincture of iodine over the abdomen. 

 The liquid may be drawn off with a fine cannula and trocar, 

 one-half only being extracted at a time, and the flaccid walls at 

 once supported by a tight bandage encircling the body. 



GASTRIC AND INTESTINAL PARASITES. 



Larva of Insects. — Bots. — These are the larva of four 

 different species of gadfly that pester horses in summer and 

 autumn, gluing their little white ovoid eggs on the long hairs 

 beneath the jaws, on the breast, shoulders, and fore limbs, on 

 which the empty shells may be carried through the winter. 

 When the horse licks himself the live embryo is extracted from 

 the egg and swallowed, or in the case of those beneath the 

 jaws they fall into the food and are devoured with it. By tlie 



