diseases of the digestive organs.

DISEASES OF THE DIGESTIVE ORGANS. 51Symptoms.—The ox suddenly becomes very restless, stamps with hisfeet, moves back and forward, hurriedly lies down, rises, moves his tailuneasily, and kicks at his belly with the foot of the affected side.The pain evinced may diminish, but soon returns again. In the earlystage there are frequent passages of dung, but after the lapse of eighteento twenty-four hours this ceases, the bowel apparently beingemptied up to the point of strangulation, and the passages now consistonly of a little mucus mixed with blood. When injections are given atthis time the water passes out of the bowel without even being colored.The animal always lies down on the side where the herniaexists and stretches out his hind feet in a backward direction. Thesetwo particular symptoms serve to distinguish this affection from enteritisand invagination of the bowel. As time passes, the animal becomesquieter, but this cessation of pain may indicate that gangrene of thebowel has set in, and may, therefore, under certain circumstances, beconsidered a precursor of death. Gangrene may take place in fromfour to six days, when perforation of the bowel may occur and deathresult in a short time.Treatment.—The ox should in the firstplace be examined by oilingthe hand and arm and passing it into the rectum; the hand should bepassed along the margin of the pelvis, beginning at the sacrum and continuingdownward towards the inguinal ring, when a soft painful swellingwill be felt, which may vary from the size of an apple to that oftwo fists.This swelling will be felt to be tightly compressed by thespermatic cord. It very rarely happens that there is any similar swellingon the left side, though it is best in such cases to make a thoroughexamination. The bowel has sometimes been released from its positionby driving the ox down a hill, by causing him to jump from a height of2 feet to the ground, and the expedient of trotting him has been resortedto with the hope that the jolting movement might bring about a releaseof the bow r el. If the simple expedients mentioned have beeu tried andfailed, then the hand being passed into the rectum should be pressedgently on the swelling in an upward and forward direction so as toendeavor to push the imprisoned portion of the bowel back into theabdomen. While this is being done the ox's hind feet should stand onhigher ground than the front, so as to favor the slipping out of thebowel by its own weight, and at the same time an assistant shouldsqueeze the animal's loins so as to cause it to bend downward and sorelax the band formed by the spermatic cord. If the imprisoned portionof gut is freed, which may be ascertained by the disappearance ofthe swelling, the usual sounds produced by the bowels moving in theabdomen will be heard, and in a few hours the feces and urine will bepassed as usual. If the means mentioned fail in releasing the imprisonedportion of the gut, then an incision about 4 inches long must bemade in the right flankin a downward direction, the hand introducedinto the abdomen, the situation and condition of swelling exactly ascer