58 
FR. BLAZEKOVIC. 
ing and sudden plunging, great difficult in breathing, irregula 
tumultuous beating of the heart, a small irregular pulse, are tl 
only perceptible symptoms, which death soon conquers. 
Ruptures of the muscle of the heart are accompanied by sin 
ilar appearances, but they are of somewhat longer duration, b 
cause there the rupture is not so much the cause of death as tl 
blood which suddenly flows into the pericardium with all fore' 
The function of the heart becomes momentarily or gradually su 
pended according to the quantity of the inpouring blood. 
Such alterations of the heart which occur in consequence d 
hypertrophy, as induration, fatty degeneration of special part 
aneurism, generally produce such appearances which coincide wit 
those of hypertrophy, partly with and partly without perceptibl 
deviation. But we will hardly be able to determine with certaint 
the kind of pathological disturbance we have to deal with in tl: 
given case. It will be difficult to find fulcrums for the especk 
diagnostic. It is sufficient if we can establish the existence of sue 
an alteration in the heart, its nature being no matter of const 
quence for the time being, since we are unable during life to d( 
termine it. 
Such pathological changes in the heart are wont to be ass< 
ciated with those general symptoms which are usually found i 
chronic diseases of the heart. Concomitant are various fun< 
tional disturbances of greater or less moment, as also various coi 
secutive diseases, which, upon superficial examination, are gene 
4 
ally taken for the essential disease and treated as such, natural! 
without success, as the germs of the disease lying in the heaj 
remain wholly disregarded. 
Foreign bodies penetrating the substance of the heart in rum 
nants have, according to the nature of things, specific symptom 
as a result. It is only so far possible to establish these as w 
have the complicated symptoms of a violent pericarditis an 
endocarditis before us. As soon as this is observed in ruminanb 
their immediate slaughter should be recommended; the pos 
mortem examination will then disclose the cause of the violen 
symptoms of the heart. 
{To be continued .) 
