422 The Diseases of Aninals 
nausea and vomiting, colicky pains, purging, bloating, 
and often inflammation of the bowels. (2) The other 
group of symptoms results from the absorption of 
some poisonous substance that seems to paralyze the 
nerve centers, especially those that control the beat- 
ing of the heart and the breathing. There is great 
depression and muscular weakness ; the animal, if able 
to walk, goes with a staggering gait; it usually lies 
down some time before death, and often dies without a 
a struggle, apparently “tired to death.” There is often 
a peculiar vacant stare in the eyes. and sometimes 
delirium. In some animals, there may be a combination 
of these two forms of poisoning. 
When animals die from poisoning as the result of 
irritation of the bowels, the mucous membrane of the 
stomach and small intestine is always congested and 
red, and often severely inflamed; in fact, the whole 
alimentary canal shows evidence of irritation in being 
unusually red and with blood-vessels prominent. When 
death is due to some poison which is ahsorbed and acts 
upon the nerve-centers, there are practically no abnor- 
mal conditions to be found after death; although the 
muscle of the heart is frequently congested, giving it 
a striped appearance, and in some cases there may be 
slight irritation of the bowels. The chemical nature of 
the poisons which are supposed to exist in plants is not 
well known, very little work having been done on 
them, and it is practically impossible to isolate them 
from the other contents of the stomach in an ordinary 
chemical examination. . 
The treatment of poisoning must depend on the symp- 
