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, ananiia 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 inge.sta, but al.so 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 

 ga.stric tympany. General and digestive 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 latter in a specially fermentescible 

 condition. As direct exciting causes may be named : 



Y&xy 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 quantity -into the intestines, they fail to 

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

 fermentation. Very rapidly grown and aqueous grasse." 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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