Acute Gastric Indigestion in Solip.eds. 159 



•dullness goes on to stupor or coma, the animal falls helpless 

 and dies in a state of profound insensibility. 



If the stomach should become ruptured there is often vomiting, 

 the ingesta escaping by the nose, without any relief of the general 

 symptoms, but with an increasingly haggard expression of coun- 

 tenance, sunken eye, accelerated, weak, and finally imperceptible 

 pulse. Cold sweats, which may have been already present, be- 

 come more marked and the prostration becomes more extreme 

 and the abdominal tenderness more marked. There are muscular 

 tremblings of the shoulders and thighs, dilatation of the pupils, 

 rapid breathing and stupor which presages death. 



Recovery may be hoped for if rumbling in the bowels com- 

 mences anew, if defecations continue and become soft and liquid, 

 if urine is passed abundantly and if the general symptoms are 

 improved. Complete relief may be had in five or six hours, and 

 ■even in protracted cases in two days. 



Lesions. The body is swollen, tense and resonant > the rectum 

 usually projects somewhat and is dark red ; the intestines, small 

 and large, are tympanitic ; the stomach is double or triple its 

 usual size, tense and resistant, and with its contents may weigh 

 as much as 40 pounds. "When cut open its contents are seen to 

 be disposed in the order in which they were eaten, in stratified 

 layers, the motions of the stomach have not operated to mix 

 them. There is no sign of digestion, unless it be in a thin sur- 

 face layer or film which may be white, pulpy and chymified. 

 The cuticular mucosa is usually unchanged further than its at- 

 tenuation by stretching, the alveolated mucosa also attenuated is 

 ■congested, opaque or slightly inflamed. The great curvature 

 may be the seat of a rupture the edges of which are slightly 

 swollen, congested and covered with small blood clots. The 

 escaping ingesta usually remains enclosed in the omentum, which 

 thus looks like a larger stomach with extremely thin gauze-like 

 walls. If this is ruptured then the food floats in masses among 

 the convolutions of the intestines. The peritoneum is red, hem- 

 orrhagic and covered with more or less exudation. 



Another occasional lesion is rupture of the diaphragm. The 

 liver and spleen are usually small and comparatively bloodless,, 

 •owing to the compression. 



Diagnosis. This is largely based on the speedy supervention 

 .of the attack on a feed, the animal having been apparently well 



