334 
A CASK OF PUEltPEliAL FEVER. 
eating and ruminating as usual; but on putting some hay before 
her, and the cowherd preparing to leave her for the night, she 
suddenly gave a snort, and tossed her head about, stamping with 
her feet. On going up to her head, he found, to his great asto- 
nishment, that her eyes were completely closed by the tumefac- 
tion of the parts adjacent. So suddenly did this occur, that he 
was induced to look among the hay for some venemous reptile, 
as the vipera communis was in great abundance at the place 
where the hay was cut. On finding none, they immediately 
came to me at the hour abovementioned. I was presently in 
attendance, and found her very uneasy, rubbing her head against 
the stall-post, shifting about the stall, and having all the appear- 
ance of labouring under an affection of the abdominal viscera, 
for the rumen was much distended with gas. The whole neigh- 
bourhood of the orbicularis palpebrarum was swelled so much 
that very little of the globe of the eye could be seen. The pulse 
was 70, full and bounding. 
I immediately abstracted five or six quarts of blood: indeed I 
suffered the blood to run until the pulse began to falter. I then 
gave of the chloride of sodium Ihiss in solution, which had the 
effect of decomposing the gas, and acting as a cathartic. I re- 
moved the contents of the rectum by means of enemas, washed 
the tumefied parts with diluted acetic acid, and rubbed the legs 
and body well with straw, for the purpose of equalizing the cir- 
culation. 
She now appeared to be somewhat relieved — the swelling 
around the eyes was nearly gone, and on the whole she looked as 
if she was recovering ; but in the course of two or three hours she 
staggered and fell, and the rumen again became distended. 
1 then went into town for the purpose of procuring a probang, 
and on my return she was still down, and unable to rise. Her 
breathing was now become laborious ; she was moaning, and 
seemed suffering very much. We kept the head cool with wet 
cloths, and passed the probang into the rumen ; but little or no 
gas followed the introduction of the instrument. 
I proposed that the whole course of the spine should be sti- 
mulated with liq. aramon, acet. ; but the owner, seeing it was likely 
to be a hopeless case, did not wish her to be put to any unneces- 
sary pain. The disease now ran it course with fearful rapidity. 
There were convulsive twitchings of the voluntary muscles, and 
the eye became completely amaurotic. Three hours previous to 
her death, the rumen being still distended, I punctured it, and a 
great quantity of gas escaped. As I learned that they had been 
very kind to her, I suspected that there was a great deal of solid 
ingesta in the paunch. 1 enlarged the opening, so as to admit 
