ACUTE INTESTINAL INDIGESTION IN THE HORSE. 

 INTESTINAL TYMPANY. 



Definition. Causes : Debility — general and local, and its causes, fer- 

 mentescible food, legumes, new grain, paralyzing seeds, musty fodder, 

 defective teeth, jaws and salivary glands, iced water after grain, verminous 

 embolism, chill. Symptoms : Anamnesis, colic, gaseous distension, stupor, 

 death, diagnosis from spasmodic colic. Course : Fatal in two hours, or 

 more. Recovery. Lesions : Distension of bowels with carburetted hydro- 

 gen, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen, redness of intestinal mucosa, ansemia of 

 abdominal organs, congestion of cutaneous and surface vessels. Treatment : 

 Stimulants, antiseptics, enemata, chloral hydrate, puncture, eserine, pilo- 

 carpin, friction, massage, exercise, dieting, bitters. 



Definition. A gaseous overdistension of the intestines, from 

 fermentations in the ingesta, but also in part from air that has 

 been swallowed, and from carbon dioxide exhaled from the blood 

 circulating in the intestinal mucosa. 



Causes. These are to a large extent the same as those of gas- 

 tric tympany. General and degestive debility resulting from 

 former disease, from spare diet, from unsuitable or indigestible 

 food, from anaemia, from parasites, from hemorrhages, is a potent 

 predisposing cause. 



Weakness of the alimentary canal from catarrh, or other per- 

 sistent disease, from impaired innervation, from embolism of the 

 vessels and imperfect circulation also predisposes, or again the 

 lack of vermicular movement and of the mingling of the digestive 

 fluids with the food, leaving the matter in a specially fermentes- 

 cible condition. As direct exciting causes may be named : 



Very fermentescible food in excess, such as the leguminous pro- 

 ducts (beans, peas, vetches, cowpea, alfalfa, sainfoin, clover) in 

 their green condition. These contain an excess of protein com- 

 pounds, which should be mainly digested in the stomach, and if 

 passed rapidly in large quantities into the intestines, they fail to 

 be sufficiently acted on by the trypsin, and are specially liabie to 

 fermentation. Very rapidly grown and aqueous grasses are 

 similarly liable to decomposition. 



New grain is specially liable to fermentation the more so that 

 it sometimes contains a paralyzing agent, which acts like intoxi- 



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