the 
VETERINARIAN. 
VOL. XXXV. 
No.412. 
APRIL, 1862 . 
Fourth Series. 
No. 88. 
Communications and Cases. 
ON SOME OF THE DISEASES OF THE STOMACH 
AND INTESTINES OF THE HORSE AND 
OTHER ANIMALS. 
By Professor Brown, M.R.C.V.S., 
Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester. 
The pathology of the abdominal organs is often exceed¬ 
ingly obscure in its indications. Commonly symptoms, 
indicative of intense pain, are all the practitioner has to help 
him to a diagnosis ; and not unfrequently he is compelled to 
pursue a course of treatment which has for its object the 
relief of suffering, rather than the cure of the disease on which 
the pain depends, and of which he is probably compelled to 
remain in ignorance until a fatal termination enables him to 
inspect the affected organs. 
Diseases of the Stomach are constantly associated with 
intestinal derangement, although not invariably so; for 
example, there are certain well-known diseases, particularly 
in cattle and sheep, which are specially confined to the 
stomach or a portion of it. 
The occurrence of mechanical distension by gas, or excess 
of food, is not unusual in cattle and sheep, and not unknown 
among horses that are rapid feeders ; nor is a fatal termina¬ 
tion uncommon in any of these subjects. 
Tympanitis may be considered the most simple and tractable 
of stomach affections. It always arises from an interruption 
to the digestive process, and the extrication of certain 
gaseous compounds, products of putrefactive fermentation. 
The pressure exerted by the gas on all sides closes the commu¬ 
nications between the stomach and the tubes leading toandfrom 
13 
XXXV. 
