872 
E. MINK. 
In such animals, the ordinary exciting causes, such as cold 
water, exposure, fatigue, irritating food, or food rich in starch, 
will frequently produce an attack of flatulent colic. 
To the second question, as to the real pathological condition 
existing in this disease, I can only answer, the functions of the 
stomach are deranged or partly suspended. As a result of this 
the food contained within the stomach soon undergoes a process 
of fermentation and putrefaction, instead of digestion ; gases are 
freely eliminated, and hence the bloated and tympanitic condition 
of the stomach and bowels. The great danger in these cases, as 
before mentioned, is that if the evolution of gases is not arrested, 
rupture of the stomach or diaphragm will take place , or else death 
by asphyxia, owing to the immense pressure on the diaphragm and 
lungs. 
The primary causes of suspended digestion are perhaps not 
fully understood. Chemists and physiologists assure us that the 
putrefaction or fermentation of the nitrogenized constituents of 
food, makes itself known at all times and under all circumstances 
by the disengagement of ammonia having an alkaline reaction • 
and that the fermentation of the non-nitrogenized substances 
is always attended by the formation and liberation of carbonic, 
acetic or lactic acid. It follows then that the mixed foods, when 
fermenting, must always neutralize each others’ products, unless 
one of them is in excess. It is known that whenever starch is 
converted into sugar, with moisture and a free supply of oxygen, 
heat and carbonic acid are freely evolved. And as the supply of 
oxygen is more or less limited, we only get fermentation when 
animals are allowed to drink freely of water, while the stomach 
is more or less filled with food rich in starch or sugar. In this 
connection it should be borne in mind, that water holds in solution 
the required element, viz, oxygen. We are aware, of course, that 
when the functions of the stomach, or rather of digestion, are 
fully performed, nature admirably provides for checking or hold¬ 
ing in subjection these simple chemical actions, so that no gases 
are liberated. 
Now, as I ventured an opinion in the outset that ninety-five 
out of every one hundred cases would recover if left to them 
