FOOD 153 



their animals entirely on beans or peas! This is the 

 condition existing in some districts, due to the fact that 

 there is no other grain available in sufficient quantity; but 

 the case is an ideal one for a mixed diet, as beans and peas 

 are excessively nitrogenous, and greatly deficient in carbon. 



An excess of food leads as a physiological result to a 

 deposition of fat in various parts of the body ; as a patho- 

 logical result it may produce a febrile condition, with liver 

 and blood derangement, especially when the excess is due 

 to proteid. 



In the intestinal canal the excess of food may be got rid 

 of by diarrhoea, or it may lie in the digestive tract and 

 ferment, producing toxines which possibly are responsible 

 for the disordered condition of the blood, and the inflam- 

 mation of the lymphatic vessels of the limbs, conditions 

 which especially occur among the overfed heavier breeds of 

 horse. 



Diarrhoea is by far the most favourable condition to be 

 present, the excess is eliminated, and the animal's tem- 

 perature falls. But the excess may be stored up in the 

 bowels, producing obstinate constipation, with its attendant 

 pain. This may be greatly aggravated by tympany the 

 result of gas generated during the putrefactive processes. 



In poisoning by excess of proteid the fcetor of the dejec- 

 tions may be intolerable, while the urine is coffee-coloured, 

 and contains an excess of urea. 



But perhaps the most remarkable condition produced is 

 that known as Azoturia, where the animal drops from 

 sudden paralysis of the hind-quarters, with a blood- 

 coloured urine due to methsemoglobin, showing the 

 profound changes which are occurring in the red cells as 

 the result of an excess of proteid in the system. 



An excess of starches and fats produces much less urgent 

 symptoms ; the pampered carriage horse is a good type of 

 the class, fat deposited in every available place, heart, 

 abdomen and subcutaneously, with a friable liver and fatty 

 heart muscle, due to nothing else but excess of food and 

 too little work. This though a pathological condition in 



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