Cattle 1853 - Lewis Family Farm

DISEASES OF THE ABOMASUM, OR. FOURTH STOMACH. 317
except soft or almost fluid mashes, but the animal may be indulged
in water or thin gruel without limit. Clysters can have little effect,
and will only uselessly tease the animal, already sufficiently annoyed,
by frequent drenching.
After all, it may be doubtful whether the injury and danger
produced by the distension*of the manifolds with food is not sometimes
brought about in a different way from that which has been
hitherto imagined. This stomach has already been described (p.
288), as situated obliquely between the liver and the right sac of
the rumen, and, therefore, when distended by food it will -press
upon the liver, and impede the circulation -through the main velsel
that returns the blood from' the intestines to the heart, and
thus cause the retention of an undue quantity of blood in the
veins of the abdomen. From this will naturally or almost necessarily
arise a determination of blood to the brain, and the winding
up of the disease by a species of apoplexy. This, however, will
not alter the opinion that has been given of the proper treatment
of the disease, but will throw considerable light on the nature and
causes of some of these determinations to the head, which have not
hitherto been perfectly understood.
THE DISEASES OF THE ABOMASUM, OR FOURTH STOMACH.
Our knowledge of the nature, and symptoms, and treatment of
these diseases is as imperfect as those of the manyplus. Concretions,
and mostly of hair, are occasionally found in this stomach, which, by
their pressure, must produce disease to a certain extent. Poisonous,
substances, received into this stomach after rumination, as is sometimes
the case when the plants are fully grown, from the deficiency
of acute taste in the ox, and which oftener happens when, in spring,
neither their taste nor their smell is developed, produce inflammation
and ulceration of the coats of the abomasum. Inflammation may
and does exist from other causes, as exposure to too great heat, and
the continuance of unseasonable cold and wet weather, too sudden
change of food, the administration of acrid and stimulating medicines :
but the practitioner can rarely distinguish them from inflammatory
disease of the other stomachs, or of the intestinal canal.
So far as the symptoms can be arranged, they are nearly the following
: there is fever ; a full and hard pulse at the commencement,
but rapidly changing its character and becoming small, verj' irregu-
lar, intermittent, and, at last, scarcely to be felt except at the heart.
The beast is much depressed and almost always lying down, with its
head turned towards its side, and its muzzle, as nearly as possible,
resting on the place beneath which the fourth stomach would be
found, or when standing, it is curiously stretching out its fore limbs,
with its brisket almost to the ground. The inspirations are deep,