120 THE DISEASES OP THE DOG. 



and gastric walls. Gamgee describes the operation in 

 detail. 



Gastric Dilatation is often found post-mortem in old 

 dogs which have become dyspeptic from a long course of 

 over-feeding. The animal is liable to tympany and colic 

 during life. 



Foreign Bodtes in the Stomach* are either introduced 

 through the oesophagus in their formed state, or gradually 

 produced by mechanical and chemical forces from the 

 materials ingested from without. When sharp and in- 

 digestible, foreign substances cause gastric fistula, and 

 thus either escape through the walls of the belly or into 

 the abdominal cavity among the bowels, where they may 

 cause mischief : needles, forks, nails, &c, soon act in this 

 way, and when they emerge from the fistula, or are ex- 

 tracted by operation, they are found to be more or less 

 eroded by the action of the gastric juice. Bounded bodies 

 of even considerable size can escape from the stomach into 

 the bowels, the pylorus being somewhat lax towards the 

 end of the process of gastric digestion, when it admits of 

 a rush of such matters as the stomach has been unable to 

 deal with. I consider that this can be physiologically 

 accounted for, on the theory that masses of vegetable 

 matter are not freely acted on in the stomach where there 

 is a deficiency of glycogenic saliva, but must pass on to 

 the bowels where it is subjected to the pancreatic secre- 

 tion. Perhaps, however, there is a reflux of both pancrea- 

 tic and biliary matters normally into the stomach of the 

 dog to a limited extent. At any rate, it is wonderful 

 what large foreign bodies, stones, jagged bones, and the like 

 will pass from the stomach into the bowels in some cases. 

 Animals taught to fetch and carry stones are apt to 

 swallow them, puppies in their play, and probably as a 

 result of teeth irritation, will swallow stones and dirt ; 

 pregnant bitches and animals with indigestion from other 



* Raddell relates a case of a pointer which ate a, small King Charles' 

 spaniel and died from ruptured stomach. This is very curious on account 

 of the rarity of the lesion and the cannibal tendencies of the subject. 

 'Veterinary Record,' Hi, p. 129. 



