ON HEPATITIS IN THE OX. 
21 
the disease progresses, the countenance is depressed—the appetite 
impaired—the animal becomes inactive, and has generally a stif¬ 
fened staggering gait, or a halting on one or more of the limbs. 
The eyes are dull, and, occasionally, the transparent cornea becomes 
opaque ; the nose is alternately dry and moist—the mucous mem¬ 
branes, the nasal secretion, and the skin, tinged yellow. In pro¬ 
tracted cases, Avhen the patient begins to recover, a yellow scurf rises 
from the skin which gives the hair the appearance of having been 
dusted with turmeric. Rumination is partially performed, or altoge¬ 
ther suspended. The secretion of milk is extremely limited, and in¬ 
flammation usually commences in one or more quarters of the bag. 
Occasionally tumefactions appear in different parts of the body, 
which afterwards burst, and discharge an ill-conditioned matter. 
In some cases the respiration is, at first, frequent, which is ac¬ 
companied with a short sore cough; but, in the majority of cases, 
it is not much disturbed. The bowels are generally constipated, 
often obstinately so, and small quantities of the alvine excretions 
are voided, covered with a mixture of vitiated bile and mucus, 
which has somewhat the appearance of tar; but, after the lapse of 
several days, diarrhoea occasionally supervenes. Some cases occur 
in which the animal is suddenly attacked by violent purging ; the 
alvine ejections are voided in large quantities, of a very dark colour, 
and are extremely foetid. During the progress of the disorder the 
pulse varies much in frequency, but its tone is generally soft and 
feeble. 
When an organ of so much importance in the animal economy 
as the liver becomes diseased, it must necessarily be accompanied 
by a long train of symptoms; and every action and function of 
animal life becomes involved in derangement when the power of 
separating the bile from the blood is lost. The yellow tinge which 
characterizes hepatitis may be regarded as the effect of the liver 
having lost its secerning power, and not that of regurgitation and the 
absorption of bile; for, when this viscus is inflamed, it is either in¬ 
active, or secretes bile of a vitiated quality, which circumstance 
not only accounts for the yellow tinge being scarcely perceptible in 
an early stage of the complaint, but, also, for its becoming more 
and more apparent until the inflammatory action is subdued, and 
the organ restored to a healthy state both of action and function. 
By the suspension of rumination the food is retained in the sto¬ 
machs, and is sufficiently indicative of the bile being unfit for the 
purpose of chylification The constipated state of the bowels, also, 
shews an impairment in the purgative qualities. 
As considerable intestinal irritation accompanies those cases in 
which this disease first shews itself by violent ])urging, it may be 
the effect of too large a su])})ly of bile, or that of too acrid a ([ua- 
