176 INDIGESTION. 



action of the rumen being in abeyance, and the food failing to pass to- 

 wards the omasum and abomasum. Rumination is generally suppressed. 



The disease usually follows change of diet. When the diet has long 

 been restricted, as occurs during years of bad harvests, and animals are 

 afterwards set at liberty in rich pastures, they eat greedily, distend 

 the rumen with large quantities of green fodder, and set up all the 

 necessary conditions for this form of indigestion. Similar results follow 

 when gluttonous animals are freely supplied with rich food. Working 

 oxen also suffer if withdrawn from work and fed with roots, beetroot 

 refuse, brewers' grains, or other manufacturing residue for the purpose 

 of fattening. These materials can only be absorbed in moderate 

 quantity, and the large amount of water, etc., they contain is apt to 

 disturb the animal's digestive powers, while owing to its fine state of 

 division such food cannot be returned to the mouth for secondary masti- 

 cation, and rumination therefore remains incomplete: the food accumu- 

 lates in the rumen, distending and eventually paralysing it. This is a 

 common result of feeding on semi-liquid pulp, which in order to be 

 ruminated should be mixed with rough forage. 



Insufficiency of drinking water is another and more frequent cause, 

 especially during the winter, because the ox-herd or cowman is often too 

 lazy to give a regular and sufficient supply unless water is laid on in the 

 stable itself. The dry food becomes compacted into a mass, which cannot 

 be returned to the mouth for rumination. Moreover, less saliva is then 

 secreted, and Colin has shown that rumination is impossible when the 

 parotid ducts are ligatured. 



Symptoms. As may readily be imagined, the symptoms vary, 

 according to the quantity and digestibility of the food swallowed. In 

 the first place the appetite falls off : animals suffering from commencing 

 indigestion only take part of their food ; later on appetite ceases, and 

 with it rumination. Trifling colic sets in, resembling that due to con- 

 gestion, and is indicated by unrest, switching of the tail, lifting of the 

 hind legs, slight groaning, moving from side to side, and lying down 

 and rising at short intervals. The animals seem oblivious of their sur- 

 roundings, anxious, and at times semi-comatose. 



When the case has been neglected for several days the animal may 

 masticate without having any food in the mouth, and may attempt to 

 eructate and to regurgitate food ; but such attempts always fail. It then 

 absolutely refuses food, and animals which have eaten large quantities of 

 green forage may show tympanites. If called in at this period of the 

 disease the veterinary surgeon finds nothing positive except signs refer- 

 able to the digestive apparatus. By methodically examining the digestive 

 tract, and in particular the stomachs, one discovers during palpation of 

 the left flank that the rumen is distended. This is characteristic. By 



