224 DISEASES OF THE DIGESTIVE APPARATUS. 



the almost absolute impossibility of preventing licking. It is, 

 therefore, ioadvisable to make mercurial applications to the skin 

 of these animals. The horse appears to be far less sensitive than 

 are other animals to the action of this drug when it is locally 

 applied. — w. L. z.] 



Mercury penetrates into the canals of the sebaceous glands in the 

 shape of fatty suboxide salts of mercury, and may be absorbed. 

 Another entrance for it is found in the lungs, into which the mer- 

 curial vapors penetrate. These produce, first, through their local 

 action upon the mucous membrane of the respiratory organs 

 (transformation into sublimate), symptoms of bronchitis and pneu- 

 monia, to which are soon added the manifestations of generalized 

 mercurial ism. 



Sometimes mercurial poisoning is observed in a more or less 

 large number of animals of the same stable, and takes thus an 

 epizootic character. 



10. Lead Poisoning (Saturnism, Plumbism). 



I. Symptoms of acute poisoning. 



They are those of gastro-enteritis : anxiety, salivation, vomiting, 

 intestinal pains, obstinate constipation, meteorism in ruminants, 

 fetid diarrhea, arrest of secretions (urine and milk). We observe, 

 besides, nervous troubles : convulsive movements of the head, neck, 

 and shoulders, saturnine trembling, trismus, epileptiform attacks, 

 spells of vertigo, furious delirium, convulsions, choreic contrac- 

 tions ; weakness, drowsiness, complete or partial paralysis, para- 

 plegia (lead-paralysis), anaesthesia (lead-ansesthesia). The pulse is 

 hard and evasive, often slow ; the respiration is difficult and dyspnoeic. 



II. Symptoms of chronic poisoning. 



Lead herpes and cachexia, colics, troubles of locomotion (satur- 

 nine arthralgia and lead-rheumatism); the cerebral symptoms 

 similar to acute poisoning (saturnine encephalopathy), epileptiform 

 attacks (saturnine eclampsia) ; wheezing in horses and sterility in 

 the goat ; ulcerous stomatitis (blue line on the gums), and chronic 

 nephritis (atrophied kidneys). The experimental researches of 

 Ellenberger and Hofmeister have shown that there is a diminution 

 of urea, a disappearance of hippuric acid, and albuminuria in the 

 serious forms of saturnism. 



Pathological anatomy. Paleness and retraction of the intes- 

 tinal tube; upon the mucous membrane there is a circumscribed 



