FOG-SICKNESS, OK HOVEN. 
481 
FOG-SICKNESS, OR HOVEN. 
Cause. —This unpleasant, and frequently troublesome 
malady is caused by cattle being removed from house or 
yard-feeding to rich pastures of meadow-grass or young 
clover, on which they feed so voraciously, that the stomach 
being overloaded with succulent food, fermentation takes 
place, a quantity of air is generated, which descending 
into the bowels, produces a general swelling of the 
belly. The cause is the animal taking in too great a 
quantity at once, without performing the necessary act of 
chewing the cud, by which the food is reduced into a more 
solid consistence, and prepared for its passage from the 
paunch into the other stomachs. It not unfrequently hap¬ 
pens that the stomach is so distended with food and air, 
that it bursts, unless relief be timously afforded. It would 
seem that the great accumulation of air causes constriction 
of the gullet, so that it cannot escape upwards; and the 
same constriction produces spasmodic contraction in the 
openings of the different stomachs, by the unusual disten¬ 
tion, and thus the air is checked in its progress downwards. 
It must be obvious that it is better to guard against the 
direness of this malady, than to remedy the evil. Care 
should be taken not to turn cattle into rich pastures when 
they are hungry ; but if it is absolutely necessary that they 
should be turned out, they ought only to be allowed a limited 
time for feeding, and then return to their former situation, 
to chew the cud; and thus, by a little caution, the evil 
may be avoided. This should be repeated daily, until the 
animals are habituated to the change. The sudden gorging 
of the paunch, and the evolution of air, creates such a dis¬ 
tention in it, that the function of chewing the cud is en¬ 
tirely prevented, and consequently it is seldom that Nature 
works its own cure, as is the case with other complaints. 
