Frosted articles act in a similar way, partly when still cold by the chilling and paralyzing of the stomach, but cold or warm, by reason of the special tendency of all frozen vegetables to undergo rapid fermentation when thawed out. This is true of green food of all kinds when covered by hoarfrost, of turnips, beets, potatoes, carrots, apples, cabbage, etc., which have once been frozen, and of frosted turnips and potato tops, though, in the case of the latter agent, a narcotic principle is added. In the case of Indian corn, the smaller cereal grains, and certain leguminous plants (vetches, tares, peas, beans) which have the seed fully formed but not yet quite hardened nor ripened, there is the double action of a paralyzing constituent and an aliment that is specially susceptible of fermentation. Inflammation of the rumen, already quoted as a cause, may be determined by hot as well as cold food, by irritant drugs and poisons, and by narcotico-irritant and other acrid plants in fodder or pasture. In the same way the inflammation caused by the introduction of foreign bodies into the rumen, such as nails, tacks, needles, pins, wires, knife blades, and masses of hair or wool may at times cause tympany. The two main causative factors, of paresis of the rumen on the one side and of specially fermentescible food and a multiplicity of microbian ferments on the other, must be recognized as more or less operative in different cases, and in many instances their combined action must be admitted. The tympany is the symptom and culmination of a great variety of morbid causes and conditions, and its prevention and treatment must correspondingly vary. _Symptoms._ The whole left side of the abdomen being occupied by the rumen, its distension leads to an uniform swelling of that side, differing from that caused by simple excess of solid ingesta in being more prominent high up between the last rib and the outer angle of the ilium, and in giving out in this region a clear tympanitic or drumlike resonance on percussion. It has also a tense resiliency, like that of a distended bladder, easily pressed inward by the finger but starting out to its rotundity the moment the pressure of the finger is withdrawn. The distension caused by overloading with solids bulges out lower down, is not resonant but dull or flat when percussed, and yields like a mass of dough when pressed retaining the indentation of the finger for some time. The swelling of tympany, when extreme, rises above the level of the outer angle of the ilium and even of the lumbar spines on the left side, and if no relief is obtained the right side may undergo a similar distension. Auscultation detects an active crepitation over the whole region of the rumen, finer in some cases and coarser in others, according to the activity of evolution and the size of the bubbles of gas. The crepitation is especially coarse and loud in fermentation of green food, and of spoiled potatoes or other tubers or roots.