DISEASES OF THE HEART AND- BLOOD-VESSELS. 89 



INJURY TO THE HEART BY FOREIGN BODIES. 



Cattle are addicted to the habit of chewing and swallowing many 

 objects not intended by nature or man as articles of food. Every vet- 

 erinarian of experience has met with instances to remind him of this, 

 and it is well known to butchers. Among the great variety of things 

 that have thus found their way into the stomachs of cattle the following 

 have been noticed : Gold finger-rings, knitting needles, old shoes, table 

 knives, wood, pieces of leather, pieces of wire, buttons, hairpins, 

 brushes, nails, coins, etc. The more sharply-pointed objects often 

 penetrate the wall of the stomach, gradually work their way toward 

 the heart, pierce the pericardium (bag inclosing the heart), wound the 

 heart, and prove fatal to the animal. Cases are recorded in which the 

 foreign body has actually worked its way into one of the cavities of the 

 heart. However, instances are known in which the object took a dif- 

 ferent course, and finally worked its way toward the surface and was 

 extracted from the wall of the chest. While it is possible that the 

 object may pierce the wall at different parts of the alimentary canal, as 

 it frequently does that of the rumen (paunch), it is thought that in the 

 great majority of cases it passes through the wall of the reticulum 

 (smaller honeycombed compartment, or second stomach) and is drawn 

 toward the heart by the suction-like action of the chest. Post-mortem 

 \uniinations have demonstrated the course it pursued, as adhesions 

 and other results of the inflammation it caused were plainly to be seen. 

 It is rare that there are any symptoms exhibited to lead one to suppose 

 that there is anything amiss until the pericardium or heart is involved; 

 in fact, the object may be retained for a long time in one of the com- 

 partments of the stomach, or, after finding its way through the wall, it 

 may lodge in the tissues, perhaps cause an abscess or but slight trou- 

 ble, until some circumstance causes it to move on. The object is often 

 found having an eroded .appearance, due to the chemical action of the 

 fluid which surrounds it, and it is even recorded that it has been en- 

 tirely dissolved. 



The symptoms of this trouble are not plain, and it is seldom possi- 

 ble to give more than an opinion that certain symptoms have been exhib- 

 ited in connection with a foreign body wounding the heart or its sac, 

 but Prof. Williams (Veterinary Surgery) says: 



More commonly, however, the symptoms of the lesion have become gradually diag- 

 nostic; at first symptomatic of indigestion, with capriciotuneM of the appetite, flatu- 

 lence, and eructation of gases, and gradual emaciation. After awhile the pulse 

 becomes exceedingly small; the jugular veins arc distended; there is also a well- 

 marked jugular thrill or pulse, extending even ax high as the bifurcation of thcte 

 veins, associated sometimes with palpitation of the heart. To these succeed (rdcma 

 of the intermaxillary ureolar tin-tne. gradually extending down the neck to the dew- 

 lap; in some instances clonic ppaains of the Hiiperticial, particularly the cervical 



III It -r le. 



