Causes, improvement in the direction of easy fattening, inactive life,
best breeds of butcher cattle and pigs suffer. Symptoms, weak,
irregular, intermittent pulse, palpitation, unfitness for exertion,
general heart symptoms.
In addition to the fibrous and bony transformations to which the
substance of the heart’s walls is subject, a fatty metamorphosis is
frequently met with. In most cases the fat accumulates in great masses
externally, but in others the muscular tissue has to a greater or less
extent lost its natural structure and fatty granules have taken the
place of the sarcous elements. In overfed oxen the right cavities of the
heart rarely escape dilatation, and this condition is very often
accompanied by the fatty change. Virchow has shown that highbred English
pigs imported into Germany are subject to a similar affection of the
heart and of the entire muscular system. It may occur during wasting
diseases and from phosphorous poisoning.
The _symptoms_ are weak, irregular and intermitting pulse, palpitation
on excitement, weakness of the heart’s impulse in the intervals,
incapacity for exertion, sighing, Cheyne-Stokes respiration, loss of
control over the limbs when hurriedly driven and tendency to dropsy. It
is often associated with dilatation, is rarely distinguishable from it
in life, and is equally beyond remedial measures. The feeding animals
most commonly affected can usually be fattened if removed from all
sources of excitement. In case of phosphorous poisoning improvement
takes place when the poison is stopped.