HEENIA. 399 



In fact, when the hernia is completed, the colics are so violent that 

 the animal no longer lies down, but literally throws himself with 

 violence upon the ground, having become forgetful of the natural 

 instinct of conservation, and now rendered indifferent to all other 

 pain by the overpowering force of the hernial torture. With his 

 body covered with bruises, and bleeding from numerous superfi- 

 cial wounds, he now becomes a pitiable object. There are animals 

 of particularly sensitive temperament which will even, like those 

 in a rabid furor, bite themselves on their flanks and forearms in 

 their delirious desperation. 



During these excessive sufferings there seem to be just two 

 positions in which the animal can experience a comparative de- 

 gree of comfort. They are, lying on his back, or maiataining the 

 dog-sitting posture, on his haunches. But these movements of 

 reprieve are of but short duration, and the pains may continue to 

 be manifested without cessation, by tumultuous, violent, unequal 

 struggles, which may continue twelve or fifteen hours, or even 

 more. At last, toward from the fifteenth to the twentieth hour, 

 aU the signs of pain subside, and a great calm succeeds to the 

 previous violent agitation. This, however, is far from being a 

 good sign, or an indication of the termination of the disease. It 

 is, on the contrary, a sure token that a fatal termination is close 

 at hand, and if the patient has ceased to suffer, it is because the 

 anesthesia of death has fallen upon the organ in which his pains 

 originated. The parts which were so recently altogether too much 

 alive, have died. Gangrene has attacked the imprisoned intestine, 

 and with its appearance, loss of feeling has also come — and death 

 — for death is the loss of feeling. The animal is now in a con- 

 dition of extreme prostration. The temperature is diminished; 

 the perspiration is cold, the pulse is imperceptible, his face is 

 without expression, the poor brute can scarcely maintain a stand- 

 ing posture or move his legs when urged to stir, and when the 

 last remnant of his strength is exhausted, after a few hours, he 

 drops upon the earth and dies without a struggle. Death rarely 

 delays beyond twenty-four hours following the strangulation. 

 This is the extreme limit, and in the greatest number of cases it 

 takes place within a shorter period. 



These manifestations (the description of which we borrow from 

 H. Bouley), constitute the series of general symptoms of hernia, 

 but, at the same time, they do not belong exclusively to that kind 



