Mr. Gant, in a small volume[24] devoted wholly to the subject, describes the serious functional and structural disarrangements which over-feeding produces in stock. He found the heart of a one-year old Southdown wether, fattened according to the _high-pressure system_, to be little more than a mass of fat. In several other young, but so-called "matured" sheep, he found more or less fatty degeneration of the heart, and extensively spread disease of the liver and of the lungs. A four-year old Devon heifer, exhibited by the late Prince Consort at a Smithfield show, was found to be in a highly diseased state. It was slaughtered, and of course its flesh sold at a high price as "prize beef," but its internal organs came into Mr. Gant's possession. The substance of both ventricles of the heart had undergone all but complete conversion into fat; one of its muscles was broken up, and many of the fibres of the others were ruptured. In another animal the muscular fibres of the heart had given way to so great an extent that if the thin lining membrane (_endocardium_) had burst, death would have instantly ensued. The slightest exertion was likely to cause this catastrophe; but, fortunately enough in this case, the animal was not capable of exertion, for though under three years of age, it weighed upwards of 200 stones: this animal had received for some time before its exhibition, the liberal allowance of 21 lbs. of oil-cake (besides other food) per diem. "A pen of three pigs," says Mr. Gant, "belonging to his Royal Highness the Prince Consort, happened to be placed in a favorable light for observation, and I particularly noticed their condition. They lay helpless on their sides, with their noses propped up against each other's backs, as if endeavouring to breathe more easily, but their respiration was loud, suffocating, and at long intervals. Then you heard a short catching snore, which shook the whole body of the animal, and passed with the motion of a wave over its fat surface, which, moreover, felt cold. I thought how much the heart under such circumstances must be laboring to propel the blood through the lungs and throughout the body. The gold medal pigs of Mr. Moreland were in a similar condition, if anything, worse; for they snored and gasped for breath, their mouths being opened, as well as their nostrils dilated, at each inspiration. From a pig we only expect a grunt, but not a snore. These animals, only twelve months and ten days old, were marked '_improved_ Chilton breed.' They, with their fellows just mentioned, of eleven months and twenty-three days, had early come to grief. Three pigs of the black breed were in a similar state, at seven months three weeks and five days, yet such animals 'the judges highly commended.'"