PUNCTURE OF THE RUMEN. 
321 
peritonitis is increased and recovery delayed, though not necessarily pie- 
vented. In cases seen by Barnard and Schaak, pus burrowed as far as the 
scrotum. Brogmez lost a case after enterotomy, owing to injury ot, and fatal 
bleeding from, a csecal artery. 
Even at the present day the best authorities hold very conflicting views as 
to the admissibility of puncture of the bowel: and as operation does no 
remove the primary diseased condition, it must always fail in some cases. n 
the Lyons clinique the results were bad, but that this was not the fault ol the 
operation is shown by the fact that twenty-five horses experimentally operated 
on were little the worse. Sometimes local peritonitis, with abscess formation, 
occurs at the point of operation, and may only produce death after an illness 
of several weeks. 
HI._PUNCTURE OF THE RUMEN AND RUMENOTOMY. 
In sheep and oxen gas often increases rapidly in the rumen, distends 
the abdomen, and presses so strongly on the diaphragm as to inteifeie 
with respiration and endanger the animal’s life. This is generally due 
to rapid consumption of large quantities of fermentescible mateiials. 
Bed clover, eaten whilst covered with dew, or in a withered or heated 
condition, and rapidly grown juicy green food, particularly that grown 
on heavy ground, are especially dangerous. But any other food which 
easily ferments, like brewer’s grains, wet bran, and roots, &c., may lead 
to rapid development of gas and distension of the stomach. A frequent 
cause of tympanites is the presence of foreign bodies in the oesophagus, 
which prevent the regular discharge of gases formed in the rumen. 
Beiset’s experiments on oxen, rendered tympanitic by feeding on 
clover, show that these gases consist of 74 per cent, of carbonic acid, 
24 per cent, of carburetted hydrogen, and 2 per cent, of nitrogen ; in 
wethers of 76 per cent, of carbonic acid gas. Lungwitz’s analysis gave 80 
per cent, carbonic acid, a certain quantity of marsh gas, nitrogen, oxygen, 
and traces of sulphuretted hydrogen. Lungwitz thinks that the com¬ 
position of the gas depends not only on the nature of the food, but also 
on the stage which digestion has attained. At first more carbonic acid 
gas is found. The small quantity of gas found in the stomachs of hungry 
animals consists principally of marsh gas with some nitrogen and oxygen, 
but contains little carbonic acid. 
The symptoms of acute tympanites are unmistakable, the . most 
striking being more or less rapidly developed swelling, particularly in the 
left flank, which, under certain circumstances, rises above the level of the 
lumbar vertebra. The abdominal walls are often distended to the utmost, 
and on percussion give forth a hollow sound, feeding ceases, the animals 
are restless, show colic, and dyspnoea keeps pace with the advancing 
distension ; the respirations become shallow, the countenance is anxious, 
the veins about the head, neck, and abdomen (milk vein) are greatly 
distended, the pulse grows more frequent and smaller, the action of the 
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