IOO 



Veterinary Medicine. 



as fifteen or thirty minutes after the apparent onset of the attack. 

 Death may result from nervous shock, from suffocation, or from 

 the absorption of deleterious gases, or from all of these combined. 



In the less acute cases the animal may live several hours before 

 the affection terminates in death or recovery. As a rule he stands 

 as long as he can and finally drops suddenly, the fall ofteii lead- 

 ing to rupture of the diaphragm or stomach, to protrusion of the 

 rectum, or the discharge of ingesta by the mouth and nose. 



In still slighter cases relief comes through vomiting or more 

 commonly through frequent and abundant belching of gas, the 

 swelling of the flanks subsides, rumbling of the bowels may 

 again be heard, and usually there is a period of diarrhoea. 



Gases present. When the rumen is punctured before or after 

 death so as to give exit to the gas in a fine stream it proves 

 usually more or less inflammable, the lighted jet burning with a 

 bluish flame. The usual inflammable ingredients are carbon 

 monoxide, hydrogen carbide (marsh gas) and hydrogen sulphide, 

 yet the relative proportion of the gases varies greatly with the 

 nature of the food and the amount of gas evolved, carbon dioxide 

 being usually largely in excess. The following table serves to 

 illustrate the variability : 



The most elaborate observations on this subject are those made 

 by I,ungwitz on the different aliments kept in closed vessels at the 

 body temperature, and on similar agents fed for days as an 

 exclusive aliment to oxen provided with a fistula of the rumen 

 for purposes of collection. He found carbon dioxide to be the 

 predominating gas in all cases, but that it was especially so in ex- 

 treme tympanies and varied much with the nature of the food. 

 The following table gives results : 



