222 GASTKITIS. 



air facilitate treatment considerably ; and grass feeding 

 animals, in the spring or summer time, are often restored 

 by grazing. 



GASTKITIS, OK INFLAMMATION OP THE STOMACH. 



In any animal may this disease be observed, as the result 

 of irritant poisons being swallowed, but in carnivora it occa- 

 sionally presents itself as a primary disease without any such 

 active exciting cause. 



Many diseases have been confounded with this one, especi- 

 ally in our herbivorous quadrupeds, but in the latter it is 

 extremely rare, and almost always connected with inflamma- 

 tion of the bowels. Mr Percival says, that though the malady 

 comes rarely under the veterinarian's notice, it is not an un- 

 common disease, " for every practitioner who has been in the 

 habit of inspecting the stomachs of horses after death, well 

 knows that nothing is more common than to find the vascular 

 gastric membrane reddened." It is, however, only by post- 

 mortem examination that we can verify that an animal has 

 been killed by an attack of gastritis; and as some confusion 

 has arisen in naming diseases from an imperfect knowledge 

 of cadaveric signs, I may mention, that frequently a some- 

 what brilliant red colour of the mucous membrane of the 

 stomach is to be attributed to turgescence of the gastric 

 glands, and there may be patches of a greyish hue, with 

 appearance of tumefaction, and all this consistent with the 

 most perfectly healthy state. It is only when there is free 

 exudation between the coats, when there is marked ramified 

 redness, with evident stagnation of blood, ecchymosis and 

 erosions, that inflammation can be said to exist Sometimes 

 the mucous membrane is coated with false membranes. 

 Sloughs or large gangrenous patches and perforations of 

 various sizes are witnessed in cases of irritant poisoning. 



