CATABBH OF ABOMASUM AND DUODENUM IN THE OX. 117 



tion in cases in advanced gestation, after a long journey by railroad ; 

 before being shipped, the animals had been given a small quantity 

 of grass, and had not received anything at all during the journey. 



The symptoms observed much resembled those of vitulary fever. 

 The animals were completely paralyzed, the head was moved from 

 one side to the other ; the respiration was accelerated, the eye sunk 

 in the orbit, the pupil dilated, the countenance without expres- 

 sion, etc. The mortality was found to be considerable. At the 

 autopsy the rumen was absolutely empty. 



It would not be possible to affirm that the symptoms observed 

 by Voigtlander were entirely dependent upon vacuity of the rumen. 

 In certain acute and chronic diseases of the ox the rumen is some- 

 times entirely emptied without the appearance of the phenomena 

 just mentioned. They are undoubtedly provoked by abdominal 

 hyperemia and consecutive cerebral anemia — an explanation which 

 does not agree with Franck's theory upon the pathology of puer- 

 peral eclampsia. 



CATARRH OP THE ABOMASUM AND DUODENUM 

 IN THE OX. 



This disease seems to be frequent in the ox, but it is one that is 

 very difficult to recognize during life. Basing his statistics on the 

 examination of 600 animals which were killed for the market and 

 which presented all the signs of health, Prietsch estimates that 

 adult subjects of the bovine race are attacked by this aifection in the 

 proportion of 20 to 25 per cent. He has observed it in the acute, 

 and at times in the chronic form. The symptoms assigned to it are 

 vague, often contradictory. We shall limit ourselves to a very brief 

 recapitulation of the observations referred to. 



Saake has found this disease in growing bovines, in oxen and 

 in cows, before and after calving. 



At the onset, the symptoms are almost the same as in other gas- 

 tric affections ; we notice alternately an improvement and an aggra- 

 vation of the disease ; often there is an abnormal production of gas 

 in the stomach. Notwithstanding a more or less marked periodic 

 tympanites, the animals present all the signs of health. On auscul- 

 tation of the rumen we hear a peculiar metallic noise, which is 

 considered by Saake as pathognomonic of catarrh of the abomasum, 

 being a symptom which is said never to exist in common tympanites. 



