PRINCIPLES OF VETERINARY SURGERY 401 



symptoms. The patient is anxious, a prey to restlessness 

 or fright, and tlie countenance expresses intense pain. In 

 a r.hort time the nostrils contract, the eyes sink, the respira- 

 ations accelerate, it is absolutely unconscious of its sur- 

 roundings, will not respond to a call, and moves with diffi- 

 culty when forced to do so. The pulse becomes weaker 

 and weaker, and at the same time the heart beats become 

 accentuated, loud, resounding and perceptible at a distance. 

 The timber is dry and metallic as if the first bruit is fused 

 with the second. Chills run over the body and are espec- 

 ially intense at the olecranon and thigh, and abundant per- 

 spiration appears. When the end is approaching the 

 patient is much excited and agitated but soon shows all the 

 signs of a serious affliction. It remains motionless in the 

 middle of the stall with the head down and then falls to the 

 floor to die after a few seconds of agony. Other times it 

 lies down and rises several times and then falls as an inert 

 mass to die immediately. 



The fever is not always manifested by an elevation of the 

 temperature; generally when there is purulent infection at 

 the commencement it attains 40 degrees C. or more. In 

 some cases it is below the normal and reaches 38.8 to 38.9 

 degrees with difficulty. 



PROGRESS. — Gaseous gangrene has a galloping prog- 

 ress, its evolution is sometimes exceptionally rapid. Death 

 may supervene in twelve hours, in twenty-four hours, in 

 three days and in five days. Its duration is seldom longer. 

 The Ox. — Actually there is still some doubt whether 

 bovine animals die of gaseous gangrene. Renault reported, 

 nevertheless, that in 1786 Desplas wrote with much care 

 about an epizootic that sapped the oxen of the province of 

 Quercy, as follows : A large number of animals in which 

 setons were inserted developed tumors, thought to be 

 anthrax, at the point of insertion four,, six, eight, ten or 



