288 EXTRACTS FROM FOREIGN PERIODICALS. 
been receiving sedative medicine. Animal free from pain, 
but otherwise as in No. i. The contraction of inferior cer¬ 
vical muscles was very strong during the attempts at vomition. 
Dying. 
Post-mortem —Rupture of the stomach. 
No. 3.—Horse attacked at work with colic ; brought home 
and received sedative draught. When I saw him he resem¬ 
bled No. 2 in his violent attempts at vomition. Pulse full and 
slow, temperature below normal, distension of abdomen on 
left side ; died in an hour and a half after coming home. 
POST-MORTEM— Rupture of stomach. 
No. 4.—This case does not follow the lines of the previous; 
ones, being the details of a post mortem of a one-year-oid 
Clydesdale colt, found dead in the field. 
On opening the abdomen, the food was found lying freel) 
about and the stomach ruptured. The stomach occupied the 
greater part of this cavity, the intestines being nearly empty 
and pressed out of their respective positions. On the stom 
ach being dragged along the floor and placed on the weigh 
ing machine, it was found to weigh with its contents sii 
stones six pounds. This looks hardly possible when we con 
sider the smallness of the stomach in the horse, but the change 
must have been going on for some time, probably owing to con 
striction of the pyloric ring, and the animal being at grass hid 
illness had been overlooked. Or it may have been a congen 
ital malformation aggravated. 
There being a great similarity in cases suffering from rup 
ture of the stomach, I will not detail any others. In Nos. 1 
2 and 3, it will be noticed that ineffectual attempts a 
vomition were frequent, and that these animals died. On th( 
other hand I have had cases in which, actual vomition 0; 
eructation was a symptom treated to a successful termination 
To have vomition in the horse it is said we must have someie; 
sion in the digestive tract which relaxes the mucous folds atth< 
cardiac orifice. It is this constriction at the cardiac orific( 
that makes gastric • impaction with tympanites more fatal it 
horses than in those animals that vomit freely. But let it gei 
relaxed sufficient to allow of even eructation, and great re 
lief is given in many cases. 
