124 Veterinary Medicine. 



intestine. Treatment: laxative food, purgatives, stimulants, antiseptics, 

 enemata, stimulants of peristalsis, counterirritants, mucilages, laxative 

 diet, tonics. 



Definition. This may be defined as a form of indigestion of 

 which the prominent feature is the drying and impaction of the 

 ingesta between the folds of the third stomach. It may seem to 

 be a primary disease, but in very many cases it occurs as a result 

 of some acute or febrile or inflammatory affection. 



Synonyms. As the disease has been long popularly known it 

 has received a variety of popular names which are more or less 

 characteristic. Dry murrain, Clewbound, Fardelbound, Stomach 

 staggers, Grass staggers, Vertigo, Chronic dyspepsia, and 

 Chronic indigestion may serve to illustrate these. 



Causes. Torpor of the manifolds and the suppression of 

 secretion of saliva, together with the absence of a continuous ac- 

 cess of waves of liquid floating the finely divided food from the 

 mouth or rumen to the third stomach are prime conditions of 

 desiccation of the contents. The third stomach, like the two 

 first, has no provision for liquid secretion, but is dependent for 

 its supply on constant flushing from in front. If therefore 

 feeding and rumination are interrupted as the result of a febrile 

 disease, if the secretion of saliva is in great part suppressed, if 

 the vermicular movements of the rumen and resulting overflow 

 into the third stomach are checked, and if in addition the 

 omasum itself is rendered torpid, the ingesta compressed between 

 its folds becomes drained of its liquid, and in no great length of 

 time, to such an extent that it may be rubbed up into a dry 

 powder. All this is a necessary result of an acute febrile condi- 

 tion, and therefore all febrile and inflammatory affections tend to 

 drying and impaction of the contents of the omasum. If there- 

 fore the observer were to go no further than this he would have 

 a very simple pathology, for all or nearly all fevers and inflam- 

 mations would be to him simply impacted omasum. In the 

 great majority of cases this condition is to be looked on as a 

 secondary and subsidiary affection, while the real primary disease 

 has still to be sought for. 



Some explanation of the special susceptibility of the third 

 stomach in such constitutional troubles, is found in the source of 

 innervation of the viscus. Colin and Ellenberger could rouse the 



