PERITONEUM.
This portion of the contents of the abdomen is composed of cellular tissue, and amply supplied with absorbent vessels; its office is to separate the different viscera from each other, to envelop them, and to attach them to, and support them in their proper position. It is subject to attacks of inflammation, technically termed
PERITONITIS,
the symptoms of which closely resemble those of splenitis; and the causes too are very similar, being chiefly improper food, repletion, or exposure to extremes of temperature. Oleaginous purgatives are here the only ones which are admissible, and emollient clysters; great attention must also be paid to the diet, and nothing of an acrid or indigestible nature given to the animal. This disease is too often fatal, gradually wasting away its victim. The post-mortem appearances are as follows: the intestines have become so adherent to each other that it is scarcely possible to believe that any false membranes were ever interposed; the peritoneal surfaces present evidences of inflammation, and are often covered with confluent ulcerations resembling those seen in glanders of the horse; there is considerable inflammation of the muscular coat of the intestines, and the whole of these parts are thickened and corrugated.
WORMS IN THE INTESTINES.
These entozoaria are very troublesome in swine, and often exceedingly fatal. The spiroptera strongylina is of the kinds most common to the hog, but the ascarides tænia and echinorhine are likewise often found in considerable numbers.
The presence of worms may be inferred when the animal eats voraciously and yet continues lean and out of condition; coughs, runs restlessly about, uttering squeaks of pain, becomes savage, snapping at his companions, and destroying all rabbits and poultry that come in his way. The excrements are generally hard and highly-colored, the eyes sunken, the animal becomes daily more debilitated, and frequent attacks resembling colic tend still further to weaken him. Too often he dies; for before these symptoms have been noticed the evil has generally attained to such a height as to be beyond the power of medicine; for these parasites, and the echinorhine especially, multiply with incredible rapidity.
Drastic purgatives constitute the most efficient means of combating worms; but they must be cautiously administered, as they are but too apt to dissolve and force away with them the lining mucus of the intestinal canals. Turpentine is exceedingly destructive to
