lyo VETERINARY HOMCEOPATHY. 



bers of the leguminous order are not infrequently responsible for 

 indigestion, inasmuch as they make too much demand upon the 

 secreting powers of the viscus and impair the nervous energy, 

 whereby the expulsive movement of the muscular walls is lost 

 and the contents are not passed on as they should be. 



The practice of giving horses cooked food is one that cannot be 

 commended, and should only be resorted to under very excep- 

 tional circumstances, such as may be indicated in certain forms of 

 illness; the objection is mainly that the animal is encouraged to 

 swallow the food without mastication, without which, of course, 

 little or no saliva is secreted, and the alimentary material is thus 

 passed into the stomach devoid of 'that essential element in the 

 digestive process; moreover the food is swallowed too rapidly and 

 thus the stomach becomes overloaded and distended; the food in- 

 stead of being softened by the saliva is rendered moist with a 

 liquid that rather tends to counteract the action of the gastric 

 juice and certainly dilute it, so that the material is rendered un- 

 fit to pass on to the intestines for the completion of the digestive 

 process; it will thus be apparent that this also is conducive of in- 

 digestion and is a practice to be avoided. In young animals be- 

 tween the ages of two and four years, it should be remembered 

 that the teeth may also be responsible for some cases of indigestion, 

 as the food is not properh^ masticated but is swallowed in a con- 

 dition quite unfit for gastric digestion, in consequence of these ir- 

 regularities; the mouth should therefore be examined, and should 

 it prove that dentition is backward or is not proceeding with ordi- 

 nary healthy regularity the treatment must be directed towards 

 the repairment of this difficulty, not so much by the extraction of 

 the offending organs as by the administration of a remedy that 

 will foster their normal maturation. 



RUPTURE OF THE STOMACH. 



This is a condition of affairs that admits of no alleviation either 

 surgically or therapeutically and we include it in our list of ail- 

 ments only to enable horsemen to detect the condition and so 

 enable them to form conclusions as to possible hopes of recovery 

 when cases of this description comes under notice. 



By some veterinarians vomition is considered as a certain indi- 

 cation that rupture of the stomach has taken place, but this can- 



