STOMACH STAGGERS.—GORGED STOMACH. Such is the phraseology we are compelled to adopt (for the want of a veterinary nomenclature) to express the disorder occasioned by preternatural distension of the stomach with food or air, or both combined. Neat cattle, it is known, arc very liable, at certain seasons of the year, and in certain situations, to contract a disorder called the hove; the origin of which is, voracious grazing in some luxuriant pas ture, (especially young spring clover,) which lying in the paunch too long, gas is extricated until the bag is distended even to bursting. This creates in sufferable pain, and the animal runs wildly and fu riously about, bellowing as if it were mad. The author has witnessed one very striking case of this description in the horse; the symptoms resembled those of violent grips; every thing had been prac tised which offered any hope of affording relief; but all in vain. The animal died in great torment, and a tympanitic stomach was found to have been the occasion of his violent complaints. Now and then it happens that the stomach becomes over distended with food, giving rise either to symptoms of com mon cholic, or to a very different set of symptoms, viz. such as indicate pressure upon the brain; which arises from the sympathy of the brain with the sto mach. These cases commonly happen in large brew eries, dockyards, and other places where horses are in the habit of being employed for many hours to gether without food. This injurious practice, how ever, has of late years been so much exposed and explained, that we seldom hear of any grievances of the kind. One of the most effectual preventives against the malady, is the plan now commonly adopted by brewers' servants, stage-wagoners, &c. of feeding with hay on the road, or carrying with them nose-bags.
Come, or gripes, means, pathologically consid ered, a spasm or astriction of some part of the intestinal canal; though farriers use the phrase "gripes" to denote all the disorders of the guts, indiscriminately: it is, perhaps, properly speaking, only a term for the pain which the animal expresses. By veterinarians of the present day, it is synonym ismed with spasm; and spasm signifies a drawing together or involuntary contraction of muscular parts. We shall, therefore, apply the words colic or gripes to the disorder occasioned by spasms of the guts, of which the following are the symptoms. The horse is suddenly seized with extreme pain in his belly; he paws the ground, strikes his belly with his feet, lies down and rolls over, continually roll ing upon his back, in which posture he will endea vour to maintain himself, and thereby appears to obtain some remission of his sufferings. All at once he rises again, shakes himself, and, by casting a doleful look back at his flank, seems to express where the seat of pain is, and to forewarn you that he is about to undergo another paroxysm, which is commonly more violent than the preceding one.
At the onset, the remissions or intervals of ease are commonly well defined; but, as the disorder ad vances, the paroxysms prove more violent and longer in duration; the remissions become shorter, or may be, in the advanced stages, altogether want ing. The pulse, in the interval of ease, betrays lit tle or no alteration; it is only during the paroxysm that it becomes contracted, even to a thread, and quickened. The belly feels tense, the animal flinches when it is pressed hard or struck. Cos tiveness is an attendant, and no urine, commonly, is voided. Gripes may be the consequence of an ingurgitation of cold or spring water, and particu larly at a time when the animal is heated; it is also the effect occasionally of green food; at other times its origin seems to be referable to some indigestible or foreign matters within the alimentary canal. Fortunately for the suffering animal, this is a dis ease which commonly admits of ready and speedy removal; and it is this fact which enables us to explain the extraordinary anti-spasmodic virtues which have been ascribed to, seemingly, very dif ferent remedies. There hardly lives a farrier or groom who has not some secret cure for gripes. In Kent, we are informed, they swear to the infallibi lity of gin and pepper. At our veterinary college, spirits of turpentine is pronounced to be the ortho dox remedy. Others declare that every efficacy re sides in pimento and peppermint waters mixed. The writer himself believes that these and every other known article of our medica, are in ferior in anti-spasmodic power to opium; he has been in the habit of giving from two to four ounces of laudanum, mixed with an equal quantity of spi rits of turpentine or peppermint or pimento water, (it imports little which.) and the mixture diluted with double its quantity, viz. a pint of warm wa ter, or with (perhaps what is better) warm ale. As soon as this drink has been administered, the animal's belly should be well rubbed: after which he should be thoroughly raked, and a copious clys ter of soap and warm water injected. This done, he may with advantage he taken out of the stable, and led about for half an hour. Should these means fail to relieve him, repeat the drink, the clyster, the friction, and the exercise; and commonly by the next half hour all pain will have subsided. Bleed ing is only necessary in cases which resist these milder measures; but when it is practised, a copi ous quantity (6 or 8 quarts) of blood should be withdrawn. All this while, we are to keep a steady watch on the pulse, and be prepared for inflamma tory action, which not unfrequently succeeds to this spasmodic disturbance: its approach may be sus pected by the unyielding obstinacy of the attacks, their more frequent occurrence and longer continu ance, and its supervention confirmed by the symp toms answering to the following description.