EVIE W.—CATTLE PAT HOl.OCi V. 
!299 
simultaneously. This meteorization rarely takes place, except when 
the animal has taken a more than usual quantity of food, and superior 
to the contractile power of the pariete's of the rumen, and which can 
neither compress or resist the development of the gas—or, in other 
words, when the digestive power of the rumen can no longer coun¬ 
ter-balance the power of the chemical affinities which are called 
into play among the aliments which it contains by the high tem¬ 
perature of this viscus. Nevertheless, I have seen animals very 
considerably meteorized after having eaten only a small quantity of 
these kinds of food; but then there was doubtless an unhealthy 
state of the stomach, or a want of tone and power. 
A fermentation of the aliment does not always precede meteor¬ 
ization of the paunch; for the latter commonly takes place imme¬ 
diately after the ingestion of the food, while the fermentation of 
that food does not commence until rumination has been retarded or 
prevented by the accumulation of the food, or its refractory power, 
or some other cause. 
There is a great difference in the susceptibility of different ani¬ 
mals. Cattle and sheep become suddenl}’’ hoven and die, and, for the 
most part, upon the very spot, especially wffien some sudden showers 
have rapidly developed the vegetation of the lucern, or saintfoin, 
or the herbage, of whatever kind it may be, or wdien it is given to 
them freshly cut, or when they are first turned into these pastures. 
“ I think,” says M. Tessier, that the frequency of tympanitis 
in these animals may be somewhat accounted for from the food 
having undergone a slight mastication after being swallowed, and 
having very incompletely imbibed the saliva and the mucus ; while 
in the horse it is thoroughly masticated, and bruised and insalivated, 
and thus protected from the process of fermentation. It is also 
swallowed more slowly, and is not accumulated in so great a 
quantity as in the paunch of the ox, and, therefore, he is rarely ex¬ 
posed to this disengagement of gas. 
The aliment contained in the abomasum of the ox, having 
been submitted to a second mastication in the act of rumination, 
and then having been triturated, and become further mingled with 
the fluids of the stomachs, rarely then undergo any disengagement 
of gas ; but they are then found in the same state of attenuation 
and chymification as those which the stomach of the horse contains. 
The same species of indigestion, with distention of the stomach and 
vertigo, in the horse, attacks with decided preference, or, rather, is 
only observed in greedy and voracious horses, or in those w'hich are 
gorged with food from the mistaken idea of their capacity for work 
being increased. In these cases, the aliment will be, like that in 
the paunch, imperfectly comminuted, incompletely insalivated— 
