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Conversion and Islam in the Early
Modern Mediterranean

The topic of religious conversion into and out of Islam as a historical phe-
nomenon is mired in a sea of debate and misunderstanding. It has often been
viewed as the permanent crossing of not just a religious divide, but in the
context of the early modern Mediterranean also political, cultural and geo-
graphic boundaries. Reading between the lines of a wide variety of sources,
however, suggests that religious conversion between Christianity, Judaism
and Islam often had a more pragmatic and prosaic aspect that constituted a
form of cultural translation and a means of establishing communal belong-
ing through the shared, and often contested articulation of religious identi-
ties. The chapters in this volume do not view religion simply as a specific
set of orthodox beliefs and strict practices to be adopted wholesale by the
religious individual or convert. Rather, they analyse conversion as the acqui-
sition of a set of historically contingent social practices, which facilitated
the process of social, political or religious acculturation. Exploring the role
conversion played in the fabrication of cosmopolitan Mediterranean identi-
ties, the volume examines the idea of the convert as a mediator and transla-
tor between cultures. Drawing upon a diverse range of research areas and
linguistic skills, the volume utilises primary sources in Ottoman, Persian,
Arabic, Latin, German, Hungarian and English within a variety of genres
including religious tracts, diplomatic correspondence, personal memoirs,
apologetics, historical narratives, official documents and commands, legal
texts and court records, and religious polemics. As a result, the collection
provides readers with theoretically informed, new research on the subject
of conversion to or from Islam in the early modern Mediterranean world.

Claire Norton is Reader in History at St Mary’s University, Twickenham.

Routledge Research in Early Modern History

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Conversion and Islam in the
Early Modern Mediterranean
The Lure of the Other

Edited by Claire Norton

First published 2017
by Routledge
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and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa
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© 2017 selection and editorial matter, Claire Norton; individual
chapters, the contributors
The right of Claire Norton to be identified as the author of the
editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters,
has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
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or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Norton, Claire, Dr., editor.
Title: Conversion and Islam in the early modern Mediterranean : the
lure of the other / edited by Claire Norton.
Description: 1st [edition]. | New York : Routledge, 2017. |
Series: Routledge research in early modern history | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016045582 (print) | LCCN 2016051275 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781472457226 (alk. paper) | ISBN 9781315574189
Subjects: LCSH: Conversion—Islam. | Islam—Mediterranean Region—
History. | Conversion. | Mediterranean Region—Religion—History.
Classification: LCC BP170.5. C66 2017 (print) | LCC BP170.5
(ebook) | DDC 297.5/7409—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016045582
ISBN: 978-1-4724-5722-6 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-57418-9 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Contents

List of Figuresvii
Contributorsviii
Acknowledgementsxi

Introduction1
CLAIRE NORTON

PART 1
Trans-imperial subjects: geo-political spatialities, political
advancement and conversion7

1 Trans-imperial nobility: the case of Carlo Cigala

(1556–1631) 9
TOBIAS P. GRAF

2 Conversion under the threat of arms: converts and

renegades during the war for Crete (1645–1669) 30
DOMAGOJ MADUNIĆ

3 Conversion to Islam (and sometimes a return to

Christianity) in Safavid Persia in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries 50
GIORGIO ROTA

4 Danube-hopping: conversion, jurisdiction and spatiality

between the Ottoman Empire and the Danubian
principalities in the seventeenth century 77
MICHAŁ WASIUCIONEK
vi Contents
PART 2
Fashioning identities: conversion and the threat to self101

5 The early modern convert as “public property”: a typology

of turning 103
PALMIRA BRUMMETT

6 The moment of choice: the Moriscos on the border of

Christianity and Islam 129
HOUSSEM EDDINE CHACHIA

7 ‘Saving a slave, saving a soul’: the rhetoric of losing the true

faith in seventeenth-century Italian textual and
visual sources 155
ROSITA D’AMORA

PART 3
Translating the self: devotion, hybridity and religious
conversion179

8 Antitrinitarians and conversion to Islam: Adam Neuser

reads Murad b. Abdullah in Ottoman Istanbul 181
MARTIN MULSOW

9 The many languages of the self in the early modern

Mediterranean: Anselm Turmeda/‘Abdallāh Al-Turjumān
(1355–1423) – Friar, Muslim convert and translator 194
ELISABETTA BENIGNI
Figures

1.1 Map of the Mediterranean 10

2.1 Map of the Eastern Adriatic 31
5.1 Thomas Cross, Rigep Dandulo, 144 mm × 87 mm, line
engraving, mid-17th century 105
6.1 Map of the Morisco Localities in Tunisia 132
6.2 Mihrab of the Great Mosque of Testour 142
6.3 Star of David on the minaret of the Great Mosque of Testour 143
7.1 Giacomo Farelli, Il riscatto degli schiavi, 1672, Church
of Santa Maria della Mercede e Sant’Alfonso Maria de’
Liguori, Naples 163
7.2 Paolo Biancucci, La Vergine che protegge la Nazione
lucchese, 1620–1630, Church of San Leonardo in Borghi,
Lucca166
7.3 Frontispiece, Catalogus Captivorum Christianorum,
quos Provincia S. Josephi, Ordinis Discalceatorum SSS.
Trinitatis De Redemptione Captivorum, Erecta Ditionibus
Haereditariis Augustissimae Domus Austriacae, Ab
Anno 1777 usque ad Annum 1780, tum Africanis in öris
praecipue Algerii, Mascherae & Tripoli; tum in Turcia
Europaea & Asiatica, aut percolato litro nativa liberati
restituit, aut pecunariis subsidiis ad eam recuperandam
adjuvit, Viennae, Litteris Schulzianis [1780] 167
Contributors

The editor
Claire Norton is Reader in History at St Mary’s University, Twickenham.
She works on early modern Ottoman history, particularly instances of cul-
tural transfer and interaction among communities living in border areas
and other liminal spaces. She is interested in the complexities of identity
formation and the role past-focused narratives have in this process, subjects
that are explored in her forthcoming book Plural Pasts: Power, Identity,
and the Ottoman Sieges of Nagykanizsa. She has edited a number of books
including The Renaissance and the Ottoman World (ed. with A. Contadini)
(2013); Nationalism, Historiography and the (Re)Construction of the Past
(2007). She has also written extensively on the theory of history including
Doing History (2011) with Mark Donnelly.

The contributors
Elisabetta Benigni is Assistant Professor of Arabic and Mediterranean Liter-
ature at the University of Turin. Her research explores South European and
Arabic literary and intellectual encounters during the pre-colonial and colo-
nial periods. She was a fellow of the Italian Academy, Columbia University
and of the research programme “Zukunftsphilologie: Revisiting the Canons
of Textual Scholarship”, Freie Universität Berlin. Her publications include
studies on Arabic translations and readings of Dante and Machiavelli in the
nineteenth and twentieth century. She has also published on Italian transla-
tions of The Thousand and One Nights against the backdrop of the Italian
colonial history of Libya. She is currently completing a monograph on mod-
ern Arabic prison literature.

Palmira Brummett is Professor Emerita of History at the University of

Tennessee and Visiting Professor of History at Brown University. Her
work assesses the rhetorics of cross-cultural interaction in the Ottoman
and Mediterranean worlds. Her publications include: Ottoman Seapower
and Levantine Diplomacy in the Age of Discovery (Albany, NY: S.U.N.Y.
 Contributors ix
Press, 1994); Image and Imperialism in the Ottoman Revolutionary Press,
1908–1911 (Albany, NY: S.U.N.Y. Press, 2000); The ‘Book’ of Travels:
Genre, Ethnology and Pilgrimage, 1250–1700 (Leiden: Brill, 2009); Map-
ping the Ottomans: Sovereignty, Territory, and Identity in the Early Mod-
ern Mediterranean (Cambridge: CUP, 2015) and numerous articles on
Ottoman, Mediterranean and world history.

Houssem Eddin Chachia obtained his PhD in 2014 from the University of
Tunis. His thesis was titled “The Sephardim and the Moriscos: The Journey
of expulsion and installation in the Maghreb (1492–1756), stories and itin-
eraries”. He is now a researcher on the “Regions and Resources of Herit-
age in Tunisia” project at the University of Manouba (Tunisia). He mainly
works on minorities in the Mediterranean, particularly the expulsion from
Iberia of the Sephardi Jewish community (Spanish and Portuguese Jews) and
the Moriscos community. He is interested in the processes and complexities
of identity formation and religious conversion.

Rosita D’Amora is Lecturer of Turkish Language and Culture at the Univer-

sity of Salento, Lecce, Italy. Her research ranges from Ottoman social history
to contemporary Turkish literature and, most recently, to the investigation
of gender, religious and cultural differences and borders in Ottoman and
Turkish literary and historical sources. She is also interested in the politics
of representation in Ottoman society, especially the role played by dress and
headgear in the articulation and negotiation of different identities. She is the
author of a Turkish grammar and of a number of articles exploring cultural
exchanges between the Ottoman Empire and Europe during the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries. She has also translated into Italian several Turkish
authors such as Sabahattin Ali, Yusuf Atılgan and Mehmet Yashin.

Tobias P. Graf is a Research Associate in Early Modern History at Hei-

delberg University and an Associate Member of the Cluster of Excellence
“Asia and Europe in a Global Context”. He read history at the University
of Cambridge before pursuing a PhD in Heidelberg under the auspices of
the interdisciplinary research group “Dynamic Asymmetries in Transcul-
tural Flows at the Intersection of Asia and Europe: The Case of the Early
Modern Ottoman Empire”. Graf’s interests in the conversion to Islam of
European Christians and the deep entanglements between the Ottoman
Empire and Christian Europe have resulted in The Sultan’s Renegades:
Christian-European Converts to Islam and the Making of the Ottoman
Elite, 1575–1610 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming). His cur-
rent research focuses on Austrian-Habsburg foreign intelligence during the
reign of Emperor Maximilian II.

Domagoj Madunić (PhD in History, 2012, from Central European Univer-

sity Budapest), is an associate member of the project: “Military Life and
x Contributors
Warrior Images In the Croatian Border Territory from 16th century to
1918”, at the Croatian Institute for History in Zagreb (ISP). He is also a
visiting lecturer at Zagreb University and Dubrovnik University. His articles
cover various early modern military topics, mainly focusing on the Venetian
defensive system in the Adriatic during the War for Crete and the Republic
of Ragusa (Dubrovnik). He is currently preparing a book on the Republic of
Ragusa in the context of the tributary states of the Ottoman Empire.

Martin Mulsow is Professor for Intellectual History at the University of

Erfurt and director of the Gotha Research Center for Early Modern Stud-
ies. From 2005–2008, he was professor of history at Rutgers University in
the United States. Mulsow has published numerous books on Renaissance
philosophy, the Enlightenment, the history of scholarship and clandestine
literature including, most recently, Prekäres Wissen. Eine andere Ideenge-
schichte der Frühen Neuzeit (Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2012) and Enlightenment
Underground. Radical Germany 1680–1720 (Charlottesville: University of
Virginia Press, 2015). He was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study
in Princeton and the Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin and is a fellow of the
Sächsische Akademie der Wissenschaften.

Giorgio Rota received his PhD from the Istituto Universitario Orientale
(Naples) in 1996. Since 2003, he has been at the Institute for Iranian Stud-
ies of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (currently as Senior Researcher).
He also held visiting professorships at the universities of Trieste, Bolo-
gna, Munich and at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Études (Paris). His
main field of research is the military and political history of Safavid Persia
(1501–1736), with a particular focus on the ghulams, the so-called slave
members of the army and administration who were mostly of Caucasian
origin and often Christians converted to Islam: he has written several arti-
cles on the subject. He is also the author of Under Two Lions: On the
Knowledge of Persia in the Republic of Venice (ca. 1450–1797) and La
Vita e i Tempi di Rostam Khan (edizione e traduzione italiana del Ms. Brit-
ish Library Add 7,655) (both Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie
der Wissenschaften, 2009).

Michał Wasiucionek is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the New Europe College –

the Institute for Advanced Study in Bucharest, as a member in the ERC
project Luxury, Fashion, and Social Status in Early Modern South-Eastern
Europe (LuxFaSS). He obtained his PhD in 2016 from the European Uni-
versity Institute in Florence. His research examines cross-border patronage
networks in early modern Polish-Moldavian-Ottoman relations. He has
published extensively on the role of the Danubian principalities and their
elites in seventeenth-century Eastern Europe, as well as other ceremonial
practices in regional diplomacy. Currently, he is working on luxury con-
sumption, space and social boundaries within the Danubian principalities
and the Ottoman Empire.
Acknowledgements

This volume developed from a conference The Lure of the Other: Conver-
sion and Reversion in the Early Modern Mediterranean held at St Mary’s
University, Twickenham in June 2013. I would like to thank everyone who
helped with the organisation of the conference. In particular, I am grateful
to St Mary’s University and the Society for Renaissance Studies for provid-
ing generous grants that supported the event. I would also like to thank all
the participants who gave papers and contributed to the interesting discus-
sions we had both after the individual panels and during the coffee and
lunch breaks – it made the conference a very enjoyable experience. Lastly
my thanks go to the anonymous reader(s) and to the editorial team at Ash-
gate for their support for the volume and for making the publication process
as painless as it can be.
Introduction
Claire Norton

Religious conversion has often been viewed as the permanent crossing of,
not just a religious divide, but in the early modern Mediterranean also polit-
ical, cultural and geographic boundaries. Although conversion is frequently
interpreted in terms of the active spiritual conviction of the convert, the
paradigm of religious conversion as solely engendered by a self-conscious
psychological and spiritual conviction is problematic in such a context as
religious practice was not necessarily viewed as an entity separate from one’s
identity and sense of communal belonging. Reading between the lines of a
wide variety of sources suggests that religious conversion between Chris-
tianity, Judaism and Islam in the early modern Mediterranean often had a
more pragmatic and prosaic aspect in that it constituted a form of cultural
translation and a means of establishing communal belonging through the
shared, and often contested articulation of religious identities.
Following on from some recent ground-breaking work on early mod-
ern conversion the chapters in this volume take an approach to religious
conversion that does not view religion solely as a specific set of orthodox
beliefs and strict practices to be adopted indiscriminatingly by the religious
individual or convert. Instead the chapters in this volume analyse conver-
sion as the acquisition of a set of historically contingent social practices,
which facilitated a process of social, political or religious acculturation
and which did not necessitate a comprehensive relinquishing of previous
identities. Moving beyond the normative cultural, geo-political and reli-
gious divisions that can delineate scholarship of the early modern Medi-
terranean, many of the contributors explore the role conversion played in
the fabrication of cosmopolitan Mediterranean identities and examine the
idea of the convert as a mediator or translator between cultures: a “trans-
imperial subject”.
The chapters in the first section explore the complex, but often flexible,
confessional and communal allegiances and loyalties of Mediterranean-
based trans-imperial subjects. Their crossings of geo-political and religious
boundaries in search of advancement or to escape difficult situations both
reify spatialities of conversion and illustrate networks of interconnected
2 Claire Norton
commercial, familial and diplomatic relationships. Tobias Graf approaches
the early modern Mediterranean as an intersectional, symbiotic space in his
exploration of the workings of Mediterranean cross-border, trans-imperial
networks and the role that converts played in bridging geographical, polit-
ical and religious boundaries. He focuses on the case of Carlo Cigala, a
member of one of Genoa’s oldest noble families and a subject of the King
of Spain, who sought to mobilise his trans-imperial familial connection in
his attempts at social advancement. His brother, Ciğalazade Yusuf Sinan
Paşa, a convert to Islam and high-ranking Ottoman official, in his capac-
ity as admiral of the Ottoman fleet, sought to facilitate the appointment of
Carlo Cigala to the Ottoman sancak of the Duchy of Naxos, demonstrating
the role of converts in mediating and facilitating trans-imperial networks of
patronage.
In contrast, Domagoj Madunić analyses conversion during a time of con-
flict, in this case the seventeenth-century Venetian–Ottoman war for Crete
(1645–1669). Focusing on a number of case studies of conversion from the
Adriatic frontier zone, he argues that, during war, conversion could be a
survival strategy to save one’s life, escape captivity or avoid forced labour in
the galleys. His discussion of the case of Fra Giorgio who converted to Islam
under threat of impalement foregrounds the complexity of early modern
political relationships and the importance of familial networks that tran-
scended religious and communal boundaries. Fra Giorgio’s sister was the
wife of the Pasha of Herzegovina and, as a result of her intercession, a
fetwa was issued annulling his conversion as contrary to Islamic law as it
was made under duress. Madunić’s second example demonstrates that con-
version motivated by self-preservation could also provide opportunities for
personal advancement. Conte Vojin, a Montenegrin chieftain based on the
Adriatic frontier, oscillated in his military and political support for the Vene-
tians or Ottomans depending on how the war was progressing. Conversion
was one of the strategies at his disposal that he employed to gain access to
resources or demonstrate his loyalty. Embracing Catholicism in order to
advance his career in the Venetian army, when captured by the Ottomans in
1649, he converted to Islam, took the name Cafer Ağa and then, as a mem-
ber of the Ottoman military-administrative structure, became a staunch
enemy of the Venetians. Eventually events would catch up with Cafer Ağa
and, having alienated both Christian and Muslim communities along the
frontier, he was killed by a chieftain of one of the competing Montenegrin
clans and his head was delivered to Venice.
Giorgio Rota focuses on conversion in the context of the Safavid Empire.
In particular, he examines the complex interrelationship between Geor-
gian vassal rulers, their Safavid and Ottoman overlords, conversion and
political advancement. He explains how, in the sixteenth century, conver-
sion to or from Shiite or Sunni Islam was employed by members of the
Georgian administrative and military elite as a means of obtaining political
 Introduction 3
and military support from the Shah or the Sultan respectively. Among the
various individuals that Rota details, he examines the case of the Georgian
Giorgo Saak’adze whose shifts in political and military allegiance between
Georgia, Safavid Persia and the Ottoman Empire were accompanied by con-
comitant spatial and religious translocations. His moves to avoid enemies
or seek personal advantage entailed his repeated conversion to and from
Christianity and Shiite and Sunni Islam.
Michał Wasiucionek too is interested in the spatial component of conver-
sion. He concentrates on the spatial movements of the boyar elite to and
from the Danubian principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia that accompa-
nied their religious conversions which were largely motivated by political,
economic or judicial concerns. These cases of Ottoman non-Muslim subjects
(zimmi) who turned Muslim and then turned non-Muslim illustrate an inter-
esting variation in Ottoman cartographies of sovereignty and jurisdictional
control. Although the Danubian principalities of Wallachia and Moldovia
were an integral part of the Islamic Ottoman Empire, Wasiucionek demon-
strates how the boyar elite north of the Danube were able to maintain the
Christian identity of the socio-legal and geographical landscape by exclud-
ing converts from both the socio-political life of the principalities and from
inheriting land or assets despite their generally tolerant and pragmatic view
towards conversion to Islam by their compatriots.
The chapters in the second section explore the ontologically (de)stabilis-
ing affect that the practical integration of converts into an existing religious
community could have on early modern communities as well as the more
abstract threats that conversion could pose. Palmira Brummett is interested
in conversion as a process, one in which identities are layered or interleaved
together and that can ‘be fast or slow; voluntary or coerced; complete or
incomplete; “permanent” chronic, temporary, illusory; “real” or rhetorical’.
She explores the legitimising utility of public conversions or ‘turning’ and
the variety of ways it has been employed to project and reinforce identities.
She illustrates her argument through an analysis of a series of conversion
narratives to and from Islam including that of Philip Dandulo, a “borne
Turk” who converted to Christianity in 1657 and whose story was the sub-
ject of a very popular pamphlet entitled The Baptized Turk, by Thomas
Warmstry D.D.
Houssem Eddine Chachia explores how Iberian Moriscos both before and
after their expulsion from Iberia occupied a liminal space as new converts
and cultural minorities: first as new, Arabic-speaking Christians in Spain
following their forced baptism throughout the sixteenth century and then
in the early seventeenth century as new Spanish-speaking Muslims in the
Maghreb. Reading letters and texts by Moriscos as well as Inquisition docu-
ments, he discusses how they imagined and negotiated identities to either
facilitate their integration into the cultural and religious life of the Maghreb
or to argue for their status as Spanish Christians in Spain.
4 Claire Norton
Rosita D’Amora explores the rhetoric surrounding the ransoming activi-
ties of Christian captives by various Christian religious orders and charita-
ble organisations. In institutional texts, captives’ letters and the narratives
of returned captives, the literary trope of saving Christian souls from the
threat of conversion to Islam and eternal damnation through the provi-
sion of ransoms for captives is prevalent. D’Amora analyses this trope
in a series of paintings, arguing that such images represent an important
visual counterpart to the various written texts on captivity and illustrate
the dangerous ontological implications of conversion to Islam for early
modern audiences.
The third section delineates the self-fashioning undertaken by converts
themselves, and views conversion as a process by which multiple selves are
interpolated and interwoven together rather than the simple substitution of
religious subjectivities. Mulsow and Benigni analyse the hybrid and syncretic
nature of religious conversion and devotional practices in the early modern
Mediterranean and the ways that converts adopted, adapted and translated
the religious traditions in which they participated. Martin Mulsow explores
the self-fashioning of the Protestant, Antitrinitarian Heidelberg minister and
convert to Islam, Adam Neuser, in the context of his recent discovery of
some hitherto unknown papers of Neuser’s in the Gotha Research Library.
Mulsow argues that the Gotha papers essentially constitute fragments of
Neuser’s Apologia: an explanation of both his philosophical arguments and
his actions in converting to Islam. Focusing on the cryptographic marginalia
of the Gotha fragments and the theologian Jacob Palaeologus’ account of
a debate he had with Neuser concerning arguments for the superiority of
Islam outlined in Murad ibn Abdullah’s Guide for one’s turning towards
God Mulsow examines the hybrid persona that Neuser fashioned in Istan-
bul. Here he was both a Muslim loyal to the Ottoman court, and a “Chris-
tian” still in contact with his friends and colleagues in western Europe.
He was a scholar who was not only working on a Latin translation of the
Qur’an, but was seeking to translate both Christian and Islamic doctrine in
order to reconstruct an Islamic Christianity – the perfect synthesis between
both religions.
Elisabetta Benigni also investigates the complex identities fashioned by
a convert to Islam, ʾAbdallāh al-Turjumān (Anselm Turmeda), through his
Arabic and Catalan writings. Turmeda was a fifteenth-century Franciscan
friar and renowned Catalan poet who converted to Islam and moved to
Tunis where he authored a first-person conversion narrative and polemical
treatise on the superiority of Islam entitled Tuḥfat al-Adīb. Like Neuser,
ʾAbdallāh al-Turjumān appears to have been committed to his new faith and
he also retained a complicated relationship with Christianity and his former
Christian identity. Indeed, even after his conversion and move to Tunis, he
continued to author works in Catalan directed at an implied Christian audi-
ence in which he openly recommended belief in the Trinity and the Catholic
 Introduction 5
Church. The juxtaposition of his authorship of a polemical text in Arabic
that condemned the concept of the Trinity and criticised the four Gospels
as mendacious with Catalan works promoting the Trinity has led some
scholars to accuse him of duplicity and a lack of sincerity in his religious
beliefs. In contrast, Benigni explores al-Turjumān’s conversion as a process
of self-translation through inclusion in the context of a fluid early modern
Mediterranean world that facilitated the imagination of a “multiplication
of identities”.
Part 1

Trans-imperial subjects
Geo-political spatialities, political
advancement and conversion
1 Trans-imperial nobility
The case of Carlo Cigala
(1556–1631)1
Tobias P. Graf

Introduction
On 15 Rebiülahir in the year 1007 after the Hijra (12 November 1598),
Sultan Mehmed III issued a certificate of appointment (berat) to a certain
‘Carlo Cigala who lives in Messina’. According to the sultan’s orders, the
man was ‘to bring, without delay and hesitation, . . . [his] mother and [to]
go to the . . . Duchy of Naxos and enjoy and govern it in . . . [his] lifetime’.2
Messina, of course, was not part of the sultan’s ‘well-protected domains’, nor
was Cigala one of his subjects. This imperial command, therefore, presents
somewhat of a puzzle. Why would Mehmed III appoint a foreigner – and a
subject of his greatest rival in the Mediterranean, the king of Spain, at that –
to what was nominally a vassal state, yet effectively a sancak of the Otto-
man Empire? Taking Carlo Cigala’s appointment to the Duchy of Naxos
as a starting point, this article examines the links between members of the
Cigala family and the Ottoman Empire. I argue that, at least as far as Carlo
was concerned, Christendom’s “archenemy” had a crucial role to play in
his quest for social advancement. In fact, Carlo aspired to be, and indeed
considered himself to be, part of a trans-imperial nobility.3
To begin, however, it would be prudent to briefly comment on the main
source for Carlo Cigala’s appointment to the Duchy of Naxos since the
quotation from the berat is taken, not from an Ottoman original, but from
an Italian translation preserved in the archives in Venice. At first glance, this
may make the information rather spurious. Yet Joshua White, who has had
the chance to compare a number of copies and translations of Ottoman doc-
uments from this period preserved in Venice to their originals in Istanbul,
has concluded that the Venetian material is generally faithful and therefore
reliable.4 In this particular instance, the genuineness of the sultan’s order is
supported by the close correspondence of the Italian text to Ottoman diplo-
matics which, in fact, makes it possible to classify the command as a berat
in the first place. Phrases such as ‘give faith to my imperial seal’, with which
the body of the document ends, are commonplace elements to authenticate
the document and affirm its validity.5 While this does not preclude the pos-
sibility that the berat kept in Venice is a forgery that is very unlikely, all
the more so since the translation is contained among the dispatches of the
10 Tobias P. Graf

Figure 1.1 Map of the Mediterranean

Source: Drawn by the author using geographical data provided by Natural Earth.

Venetian baili in Istanbul who stood to gain nothing from spreading false
rumour in this case.

The Cigala family

The Cigalas were one of Genoa’s old noble families. Carlo’s father Visconte
had been born in the city in 1504 but later relocated to Messina. The Sicil-
ian port was an ideal basis of operations for Christian corsairs like Visconte
who targeted Muslim shipping. Apart from undertaking private raids in the
Mediterranean, Carlo’s father on several occasions sailed with the famous
admiral Andrea Doria and participated in Charles V’s naval campaigns in
North Africa and against the Ottomans. The Cigala family also maintained
close connections to the Vatican. While Visconte’s brother achieved the
rank of a cardinal, two of his nephews by another brother joined the Jesu-
its.6 He himself had two daughters and three sons, of whom Carlo was the
youngest.7
By the time Mehmed III issued the ferman for Carlo’s appointment to the
Duchy of Naxos, the latter enjoyed considerable social standing in his own
right. His wife Beatrice de Guidici was the daughter of a Messinese baron
 The case of Carlo Cigala 11
and, according to the Venetian bailo Matteo Zane, by the early 1590s, Carlo
was the recipient of ‘a pension of five hundred scudi annually’ from the king
of Spain.8 In 1597, moreover, the Sicilian had been granted the title of count
by the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II.9
In Carlo’s efforts to further enhance his prestige as much as that of his
family, his elder brother played a crucial role. For, when the sultan saw fit
to promote the younger Cigala in the Aegean, Carlo’s brother, who had
been named Scipione by their parents, was none other than the Ottoman
kapudan paşa, the admiral of the Ottoman fleet, Ciğalazade Yusuf Sinan
Pasha. Most probably born in 1544, Scipione Cigala was seventeen years
old when he and his father were captured at sea by Maghrebi corsairs in
1561, one year after the disastrous defeat of the Spanish fleet at Djerba.
The two men were brought first to Tunis and then to Istanbul where Vis-
conte Cigala was imprisoned in the fortress of Yedikule while Scipione
converted to Islam and entered the school of Topkapı Palace.10 Admission
to the school destined him for a prestigious career in Ottoman state ser-
vice and made his subsequent professional biography virtually indistin-
guishable from those of illustrious recruits of the devşirme, the infamous
‘boy levy’, such as Sokollu Mehmed Pasha.11 Less than two years after
his graduation from the inner palace in 1573, he was appointed agha of
the janissaries. He received his first provincial governorship, in Basra,
after the outbreak of war with Safavid Iran in 1578.12 In the following
years, he distinguished himself on the Eastern battlefield, notably in the
conquest of Tabriz during the campaign of 1585.13 As early as 1579, he
briefly assumed command of the Ottoman forces in the East when the
current commander-in-chief (serdar), Grand Vizier Lala Mustafa Pasha,
was summoned to Istanbul.14 In recognition of his services, Ciğalazade
Yusuf Sinan Pasha was promoted to the rank of vizier in 1583. As the
war with Iran drew to a close after thirteen years of fighting, he finally
secured the appointment which he had desired for years: the office of the
kapudan paşa.15
When Mehmed III succeeded to the throne after Murad III’s death in
1595, the Italian-born admiral was dismissed as part of the usual reshuffling
of positions in the Ottoman administration which accompanied a new sul-
tan’s accession.16 In the following year, still out of office, he accompanied the
sultan on campaign in Hungary where the so-called Long War with the Aus-
trian Habsburgs had broken out in the summer of 1593. This campaign saw
not only the conquest of the fortress of Eger (German: Erlau, Turkish: Eğri)
by Ottoman troops, but also, in its aftermath, the effective routing of the
Ottoman camp on the nearby plain of Mezőkeresztes. By several accounts,
Ciğalazade Yusuf Sinan Pasha played a crucial role in turning the tide of bat-
tle at the last minute, as a reward for which he was appointed grand vizier.
However, owing to palace intrigues as well as the harsh treatment of alleged
deserters, he was relieved of his duties after little more than a month.17
Subsequently, he was posted first to Damascus and finally reappointed to
12 Tobias P. Graf
the kapudanlık in 1598. This time, he remained in office even when Ahmed
I succeeded to the throne in December 1603.18 When the Italian-born pasha
was removed from his post the following year, it was because his talents as
a military commander were once again required in the Eastern provinces
where a new war with Iran had broken out.19 He died during that campaign
in 1606.20
During his lifetime as well as in the memory of later generations,
Ciğalazade Yusuf Sinan Pasha enjoyed considerable fame not just in the
Ottoman Empire, but also in Christian Europe. In the middle of the seven-
teenth century, for example, a man claiming to be a son of the late admiral
became the object of public attention. Although this self-styled Jean Michel
de Cigala/Mehmed Bey in all probability was an impostor unconnected to
the actual Cigala family, he had managed to convince the king of France
of the truth of his claim. The episode, as Ciğalazade Yusuf Sinan Pasha’s
biographer Gino Benzoni has remarked, provides ‘eloquent testimony of
the enduring fascination of the Christian world with the figure of Cigala,
who remained an enigma in the West’.21 As late as the nineteenth century,
the kapudan paşa appeared as the main character in an homage to William
Scott by the German novelist Philipp Joseph von Rehfues, while the Italian
singer/songwriter Fabrizio de Andrè dedicated a song to “Sinàn Capudàn
Pascià” in 1984.22

Carlo Cigala’s quest for the Duchy of Naxos

Against the background of his success in climbing the Ottoman hierarchy,
Ciğalazade Yusuf Sinan Pasha sought to re-establish contact with his fam-
ily in Sicily. Sometime after his first appointment as kapudan paşa, the
convert invited his younger brother Carlo to visit him in Istanbul, an invi-
tation which the latter accepted in 1593. News of this journey instantly
gave rise to the rumour that the younger Cigala had been dispatched by
the king of Spain in order to breathe new life into negotiations for a truce
with the Porte.23 If Carlo had indeed been on such a mission, it came to
naught. In any case, during a meeting in the Ottoman capital, he reas-
sured Bailo Matteo Zane ‘that he [was] here on his own private business
alone’.24
That ‘private business’, however, was more than merely a reunion between
two brothers. According to the Venetian diplomat’s relazione delivered to
the Doge and Senate after his return from Istanbul in 1594, ‘the said Signore
Carlo . . . was indulging in the belief that he could easily be given charge of
Moldavia or Wallachia by paying the usual pension to the Porte. And when
this turned out unsuccessful he hatched the idea of having the islands of the
Archipelago in imitation of the [sultan’s] Jewish favourite Giovanni Miches
[Joseph Nasi]’.25 In this undertaking, Carlo certainly hoped to benefit from
his brother’s position in the Ottoman military-administrative elite, not least
because Naxos and the other islands of the Cyclades, which were part of the
 The case of Carlo Cigala 13
historical duchy, were subject to the kapudan paşa’s jurisdiction.26 Although
Carlo had arrived in Istanbul with high hopes, they remained unfulfilled for
the time being. After several months, he returned to Messina empty handed
because, as Zane put it, ‘his brother the Capudan . . . [would] not support
him’.27
On the surface, Carlo’s visit to Istanbul appears rather unusual.
Ciğalazade Yusuf Sinan Pasha’s invitation certainly contradicts the pre-
vailing stereotype that conversion necessitated the severance of all previ-
ous ties to kith and kin expressed by Ottoman and Christian-European
contemporaries alike.28 By and large, however, such contacts between con-
verts and their families, even outside the Ottoman Empire, were a rather
ordinary phenomenon. Maria Pia Pedani has drawn attention to the fact
that, during the same period, a number of Venetians visited family mem-
bers who had entered the Ottoman elite. Some of them stayed, others
even converted themselves.29 Thanks to Eric Dursteler’s recent work, the
best-known example of this pattern is certainly provided by the Venetian
Michiel family which included the eunuch Gazanfer Agha one of the most
powerful men of his day, and his sister Beatrice, who after her conver-
sion became known as Fatima Hatun.30 That Gazanfer Agha had one of
Fatima’s sons abducted from a Venetian boarding school and brought to
Istanbul, where he, too, embraced Islam, makes it one of the most spec-
tacular cases of such continuing contacts between converts to Islam in the
Ottoman Empire and their families ‘back home’.31
Carlo Cigala’s hope to receive his brother’s patronage likewise finds par-
allels in the stories of Venetian families. Ciğalazade Yusuf Sinan Pasha’s
immediate predecessor in the kapudanlık, Uluç Hasan Pasha, for instance,
petitioned the Venetian Senate for an annual income of one hundred ducats
and a bakery for his sister Camilla who continued to reside in the Serenis-
sima. During a visit to Istanbul in 1590, moreover, Camilla’s husband explic-
itly requested his “renegade” brother-in-law to intercede with the Venetian
authorities on his behalf and help him secure either a lucrative appointment
or a pension. Although Uluç Hasan Pasha complied, the initiative proved
unsuccessful. Even before his appointment as admiral of the Ottoman fleet,
he had repeatedly used his position as a governor-general in North Africa to
obtain pardons for his brother and cousin.32
In the context of Carlo Cigala’s aspirations in the Aegean, it is note-
worthy that both Zane and Mehmed III explicitly mention the example
of Joseph Nasi as a model for the Sicilian’s appointment to the Duchy
of Naxos. Selim II’s famous courtier had become duke of Naxos in 1566
when the duchy had been formally annexed by the Porte. Yet, even after
the incorporation of the Cyclades into the Empire’s regular structure of
administration as a sancak, which only occurred after Nasi’s death, it
remained somewhat exceptional since the sancakbeyis who succeeded Nasi
included non-Muslims such as Constantine Cantacuzino and the Croatian
Gasparo Gratiani.33 As a general rule, similar positions in other parts of the
14 Tobias P. Graf
Ottoman Empire were reserved for members of the all-Muslim military-
administrative elite.34 The reference to Nasi, therefore, is an indicator
that Carlo expected to avoid following his brother’s example of having to
undergo religious conversion in order to qualify for this appointment in
Ottoman state service. This conclusion is further supported by his initial
attempts to become voivode of Moldavia or Wallachia, both of which
were ruled by Christian vassals rather than Muslim provincial governors.
The reference to Nasi may also indicate that, like the Jewish favourite, the
Sicilian intended to send an agent to carry out the business of government
while he himself resided elsewhere.35
Carlo’s aversion to embracing Islam is borne out by the events following
Mehmed III’s command concerning his transfer to the Aegean. Although
the berat had been issued in 1598, Carlo only arrived on Ottoman soil,
notably on the island of Chios, in 1600 to meet up with his brother. Await-
ing Ciğalazade Yusuf Sinan Pasha’s arrival, the duke-to-be immediately
began to renegotiate the terms of his appointment. In particular, he tried to
effect the removal of the local kadi (judge) from the island, an undertaking
which his brother considered ‘impossible because it would be an action
contrary to the law which the scholars here would not tolerate’.36 Carlo
did not, however, heed his brother’s advice to desist from this request,
informing him that the permission for settlement on the Cyclades which
he had received from King Philip III of Spain was conditional on the kadi’s
removal from Naxos.37
That Carlo had felt the need to obtain – and managed to secure – royal
approval for his undertaking is both remarkable and revealing. While he
was happy to work for the sultan, he took care not to follow his brother’s
example too closely in becoming an Osmanlı proper, a Muslim member
of the Ottoman military-administrative elite. If nothing else, the younger
Cigala wanted to avoid being branded a renegade and thus a traitor to
Christianity and Christendom, quite possibly to ensure that he contin-
ued to be employable by the Spanish crown. Evidently, Philip III had suf-
ficient trust in the steadfastness of his subject’s faith to consent to the
undertaking.
Since adherence to Islam had become the most important marker of loy-
alty to the sultan by the sixteenth century, it is remarkable that Mehmed III
did not explicitly demand Carlo to embrace the sultan’s faith. The argu-
ment from silence, however, is a difficult one to make in this case since
the sultan and his advisers may simply have taken the new appointee’s
conversion for granted and hence felt no need to spell it out as one of
the conditions for appointment in the berat. On the other hand, adopting
the ruler’s faith was not the only means by which one could declare and
ensure loyalty. In this context, the command that Carlo bring his mother
to the sultan’s domains needs to be seen as a demand for a symbolic dem-
onstration of the duke-to-be’s political loyalty. It mirrors the practice of
 The case of Carlo Cigala 15
the newly appointed voivodes of Moldavia sending family members as
hostages to Istanbul.38 Doubtlessly, the demand for the relocation of the
Cigalas’ mother to the Ottoman Empire was meant to offset Carlo’s earlier
ties to Spain, thereby preventing the Spanish crown from enforcing a simi-
lar claim to the man’s loyalty through the mother’s continued residence in
Sicily.
That the berat specifically demanded the relocation of Carlo’s mother,
however, had wider implications. Carlo’s first visit to Istanbul in 1593 had
caused quite a stir among a section of the Ottoman elite. As Zane reported
at the time,

there are some who are seeking a decision from the Mufti [the
şeyhülislam] on this point, whether it is lawful to use force to compel
the son of a Turkish woman, born at Castel Nuovo, carried slave into
Christendom, to return to Islam, which is precisely the case of Signor
Carlo Cicalla.

Interestingly, Zane’s summary of the legal issue at stake closely mirrors

the kind of abstractions commonly used in fetvas. If Bostanzade Mehmed
Efendi, who was şeyhülislam at the time, indeed produced an opinion on
this question, and if a collection of his fetvas was produced, it should be
possible to identify it on the basis of the Venetian dispatch.39 The cen-
tral issue in this controversy was the religious adherence of the Cigalas’
mother who, as other sources confirm, was a convert to Christianity from
Islam.40 In this light, Mehmed III’s demand for her return to his domains
derives from the sultan’s duty as the protector of Islam and Islamic law
and, perhaps above all else, had propagandistic value. At the same time,
the fact that the mother had become a Christian in this context turned
the demand for her relocation to Ottoman territory into a special test of
loyalty for a future servant of the Ottoman realm who would be charged
with upholding Ottoman law, including the enforcement of the prescrip-
tions concerning apostasy.41 Clearly, Carlo would only be worthy of his
post, if he put his obligation to the sultan above even his filial loyalties.
Whether or not the Ottomans expected Carlo to embrace Islam, he cer-
tainly did not abandon his Catholic faith. Nor did he transfer his mother’s
residence to the Ottoman Empire. When he arrived in Chios in 1600, he
arrived alone. Having failed to fulfil the conditions for his appointment and
unable to convince the sultan of his loyalty to him, the Italian was never
actually invested with the Duchy of Naxos. Nevertheless, he does not seem
to have given up his desire until after his brother’s death. Until then, he
maintained a second domicile on Chios. According to Emrah Safa Gürkan’s
findings, during his time there he played a central role in gathering intelli-
gence on the Ottoman Empire for the king of Spain, as well as vice versa –
another sign of his political ambivalence.42
16 Tobias P. Graf
Carlo Cigala’s quest for social advancement
Carlo Cigala’s attempts to be appointed to the Duchy of Naxos as well as
his ambivalence towards the Ottomans need to be seen in the context of
what was a life-long and ambitious quest for social advancement in which
his elder brother Ciğalazade Yusuf Sinan Pasha played a crucial role. Carlo’s
strategic use of his connection to the upper echelons of Ottoman state ser-
vice, moreover, was by no means restricted to his dream of establishing
himself in the Aegean. It is also evident, for instance, in a letter which he
sent to Queen Elizabeth I in 1601 concerning reparations for losses caused
to his ships and the goods they carried at the hands of English pirates in
the Mediterranean. In merely four pages, Carlo mentioned ‘my brother the
Captain Pasha’ no less than six times.43
Although the Italian’s attempts to be employed by the Porte were ulti-
mately abortive, in 1610, the wealth he had accumulated through various
other ventures enabled him to buy the baronage of Tiriolo in Calabria. In
addition to the nobilities of Genoa, Sicily and the Holy Roman Empire,
Carlo thus gained admission to the peerage of the Kingdom of Naples. Three
years later, like his father before him, he was admitted to the Order of Saint
James of the Sword, an honour which required papal dispensation because
his mother, as a former Ottoman subject, and thus he himself, lacked the
noble pedigree which was normally required of all its members. In light of
his attempts to enter the service of the sultan, this honour is particularly
ironic. After all, Saint James had been symbolically central to the centuries-
long efforts of driving the Moors out of the Iberian Peninsula, commonly
referred to as the Reconquista, and the fight against Muslims was one of the
main tasks with which the order was charged. Finally, in 1630, Philip IV of
Spain elevated the younger Cigala to the rank of a prince.44
In attaining these favours from the papacy and the Spanish crown, Car-
lo’s relationship with his brother was crucial. When he arrived on Chios
in 1600, the former had been authorised to negotiate with Ciğalazade
Yusuf Sinan Pasha for the latter’s defection to Christendom. By 1603, the
plan, which had originally been conceived in the 1590s, had taken on truly
millenarian proportions. Pope Clement VIII even had letters to the Otto-
man admiral prepared in which he not only encouraged the kapudan paşa
to return to his native religion, but also implored him to take up arms
‘against the tyranny of the Turks’, stage a coup d’état and install a Chris-
tian dynasty in Istanbul. Ciğalazade Yusuf Sinan Pasha was to keep all
territories which he conquered from the Ottomans, with the exception of
Hungary and Jerusalem, which were to be ruled over by the Emperor and
the king of Spain respectively. The plan, of course, was never put into
practice and, in any case, had no chance of success. Since Ciğalazade Yusuf
Sinan Pasha was called to the Ottoman–Safavid border at the outbreak of
Another random document with
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 Lameyran
Gmelin,
and Fremy,
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The most elaborate observations on this subject are those made by
Lungwitz on the different aliments kept in closed vessels at the body
temperature, and on similar agents fed for days as an exclusive
aliment to oxen provided with a fistula of the rumen for purposes of
collection. He found carbon dioxide to be the predominating gas in
all cases, but that it was especially so in extreme tympanies and
varied much with the nature of the food. The following table gives
results:

Percentage of CO2.
Buckwheat (Polygonum fagopyrum) 80
Alfalfa (Mendicago Sativa) 70–80
Clover (Trifolium pratense) 70–80
Meadow grass 70–80
Indian corn (Zea Maïs) 70–80
Spurry (Spergula arvensis) 70–80
Hay of alfalfa or clover 70–80
Oats with cut straw 70–80
Yellow Lupin (Lupinus luteus) 60–70
Vetch (Vicia sativa) 60–70
Oats cut green 60–70
Potato tops 60–70
Potatoes 60–70
Meadow hay 60–70
Leaves of beet 50–60
Leaves of radish 50–60
Cabbage 40–50
 The marsh gas varied from 16 to 39 per cent., being especially
abundant in cases of abstinence. It should, therefore, be in large
amount in the tympanies which accompany febrile and other chronic
affections. Hydrogen sulphide was found only in traces, recognizable
by blackening paper saturated with acetate of lead. Oxygen and
nitrogen were in small amount and were attributed to air swallowed
with the food. In the work of fermentation the oxygen may be
entirely used up.
Lesions. These are in the main the result of compression of the
different organs, by the overdistended rumen. Rupture of the rumen
is frequent. The abdominal organs are generally bloodless, the liver
and spleen shrunken and pale, though sometimes the seat of
congestion or even hemorrhage. Ecchymoses are common on the
peritoneum. The right heart and lungs are gorged with black blood,
clotted loosely, and reddening on exposure. The right auricle has
been found ruptured. Pleura, pericardium and endocardium are
ecchymotic. The capillary system of the skin, and of the brain and its
membranes, is engorged, with, in some instances, serous
extravasations.
Prevention. This would demand the avoidance or correction of all
those conditions which contribute to tympany. In fevers and
extensive inflammations, when rumination is suspended, the diet
should be restricted in quantity and of materials that are easily
digested (well boiled gruels, bran mashes, pulped roots, etc.,) and all
bulky, fibrous and fermentescible articles must be proscribed. In
weak conditions in which tympany supervenes on every meal, a
careful diet may be supplemented by a course of tonics, carminatives
and antiseptics such as fœungrec oxide of iron, hyposulphite of soda
and common salt, equal parts, nux vomica 2 drs. to every 1 ℔. of the
mixture. Dose 1 oz. daily in the food, or ½ oz. may be given with each
meal.
Musty grain and fodder should be carefully avoided, also
mowburnt hay, an excess of green food to which the stock is
unaccustomed, clover after a moderate shower, or covered with dew
or hoarfrost, frosted beet, turnip, or potato tops, frosted potatoes,
turnips or apples, also ryegrass, millet, corn, vetches, peas with the
seeds fairly matured but not yet fully hardened. When these
conditions cannot be altogether avoided, the objectionable ration
should be allowed only in small amount at one time and in the case
of pasturage the stock should have a fair allowance of grain or other
dry feed just before they are turned out. Another precaution is to
keep the stock constantly in motion so that they can only take in
slowly and in small quantity the wet or otherwise dangerous aliment.
When it becomes necessary to make an extreme transition from
one ration to another, and especially from dry to green food,
measures should be taken to make the change slowly, by giving the
new food in small quantities at intervals, while the major portion of
the diet remains as before, until the fæces indicate that the
superadded aliment has passed through the alimentary canal.
Another method is to mix the dry and green aliments with a daily
increasing allowance of the latter. Some have avoided the morning
dew and danger of fermentation by cutting the ration for each
succeeding day the previous afternoon and keeping it in the interval
under cover.
Treatment. Various simple mechanical resorts are often effective
in dispelling the tympany. Walking the animal around will
sometimes lead to relaxation of the tension of the walls of the
demicanal and even to some restoration of the movements of the
rumen with more or less free eructation of gas. The dashing of a
bucket of cold water on the left side of the abdomen sometimes
produces a similar result. Active rubbing or even kneading of the left
flank will sometimes lead to free belching of gas. The same may be at
times secured by winding a rope several times spirally round the
belly and then twisting it tighter by the aid of a stick in one of its
median turns.
A very simple and efficient resort is to place in the mouth a block
of wood 2½ to 3 inches in diameter and secured by a rope carried
from each end and tied behind the horns or ears. This expedient
which is so effective in preventing or relieving dangerous tympany in
choking appears to act by inducing movements of mastication, and
sympathetic motions of the œsophagus, demicanal and rumen. It not
only determines free discharge of gas by the mouth, but it absolutely
prevents any accession of saliva or air to the stomach by rendering
deglutition difficult or impossible. A similar effect can be obtained
from forcible dragging on the tongue but it is difficult to keep this up
so as to have the requisite lasting effect. Still another resort is to
rouse eructation by the motions of a rope introduced into the fauces.
The passing of a hollow probang into the rumen is very effective as
it not only secures a channel for the immediate escape of the gas, but
it also stimulates the demicanal and rumen to a continuous
eructation and consequent relief. Friedberger and Fröhner advise
driving the animals into a bath of cold water.
Of medicinal agents applicable to gastric tympany the best are
stimulants, antiseptics and chemical antidotes. Among stimulants
the alkaline preparations of ammonia hold a very high place. These,
however, act not as stimulants alone, but also as antacids and
indirectly as antidotes since the alkaline reaction checks the acid
fermentation which determines the evolution of the gas. They also
unite with and condense the carbon dioxide. Three ounces of the
aromatic spirits of ammonia, one ounce of the crystalline
sesquicarbonate, or half an ounce of the strong aqua ammonia may
be given to an ox, in not less than a quart of cold water. Next to this
is the oil of turpentine 2 oz., to be given in oil, milk, or yolk of egg.
But this too is an antiferment. The same remark applies to oil of
peppermint (½ oz.), the carminative seeds and their oils, and the
stronger alcoholic drinks (1 quart). Sulphuric or nitrous ether (2 oz.)
may be given in place. Pepper and ginger are more purely stimulant
and less antiseptic. Other alkalies—carbonate of potash or soda, or
lime water may be given freely.
Among agents that act more exclusively as antiseptics may be
named: muriatic acid 1 to 1½ drs. largely diluted in water; carbolic
acid, creosote or creolin, 4 drs. largely diluted; sulphite, hyposulphite
or bisulphite of soda 1 oz.; kerosene oil ½ pint; chloride of lime 4
drs.; chlorine water 1 pint; wood tar 2 oz. The latter agent is a
common domestic remedy in some places being given wrapped in a
cabbage leaf, and causing the flank to flatten down in a very few
minutes as if by magic. The extraordinarily rapid action of various
antiseptics is the most conclusive answer to the claim that the
disorder is a pure paresis of the walls of the rumen. The affection is
far more commonly and fundamentally an active fermentation, and
is best checked by a powerful antiferment. Even chloride of sodium
(½ lb.) and above all hypochlorite of soda or lime (½ oz.) may be
given with advantage in many cases.
 Among agents which condense the gasses may be named
ammonia, calcined magnesia, and milk of lime for carbon dioxide,
and chlorine water for hydrogen.
Among agents used to rouse the torpid rumen and alimentary
canal are eserine (ox 3 grs., sheep ½ gr. subcutem), pilocarpin (ox 2
grs., sheep ⅕ gr.), barium chloride (ox 15 grs., sheep 3 to 4 grs.),
tincture of colchicum (ox 3 to 4 drs.). Trasbot mentions lard or butter
(ox 4 oz., sheep ½ oz.), as in common use in France.
In the most urgent cases, however, relief must be obtained by
puncture of the rumen, as a moment’s delay may mean death. The
seat for such puncture is on the left side, at a point equidistant from
the outer angle of the ilium, the last rib and the transverse processes
of the lumbar vertebræ. Any part of the left flank might be adopted to
enter the rumen, but, if too low down, the instrument might plunge
into solid ingesta, which would hinder the exit of gas, and would
endanger the escape of irritant liquids into the peritoneal cavity. In
an extra high puncture there is less danger, though a traumatism of
the spleen is possible under certain conditions. The best instrument
for the purpose is a trochar and cannula of six inches long and ⅓ to
½ inch in diameter. (For sheep ¼ inch is ample.) This instrument,
held like a dagger, may be plunged at one blow through the walls of
the abdomen and rumen until stopped by the shield on the cannula.
The trochar is now withdrawn and the gas escapes with a prolonged
hiss. If the urgency of the case will permit, the skin may be first
incised with a lancet or pen knife, and the point of the instrument
having been placed on the abdominal muscles, it is driven home by a
blow of the opposite palm. In the absence of the trochar the puncture
may be successfully made with a pocket knife or a pair of scissors,
which should be kept in the wound to maintain the orifice in the
rumen in apposition with that in the abdominal wall, until a metal
tube or quill can be introduced and held in the orifices.
When the gas has escaped by this channel its further formation can
be checked by pouring one of the antiferments through the cannula
into the rumen.
When the formation of an excess of gas has ceased, and the
resumption of easy eructation bespeaks the absence of further
danger, the cannula may be withdrawn and the wound covered with
tar or collodion.
 When the persistent formation of gas indicates the need of
expulsion of offensive fermentescible matters, a full dose of salts may
be administered. If the presence of firmly impacted masses can be
detected, they may sometimes be broken up by a stout steel rod
passed through the cannula. If the solid masses prove to be hair or
woolen balls, rumenotomy is the only feasible means of getting rid of
them.
In chronic tympany caused by structural diseases of the
œsophagus, mediastinal glands, stomach or intestines, permanent
relief can only be obtained by measures which will remove these
respective causes.
 CHRONIC TYMPANY OF THE RUMEN.

Causes: catarrh of rumen, impaction of manifolds, debility, paresis, peritoneal

adhesions, neoplasms, concretions, sudden change in diet, gastric congestion,
lesions of gullet, or of mediastinal glands. Symptoms are usually after feeding only,
inappetence, rumbling, costiveness, rumen indentable. Treatment: obviate causes,
give salines, acids, bitters, and water, laxative food, carminatives, antiseptics,
electricity, emetic tartar, eserine, pilocarpin, barium chloride, apomorphin.

Causes. The persistence of causes of acute tympany may lead to

the appearance of the condition after each meal, or even in the
intervals between meals. Among the more specific causes may be
named catarrhal inflammation of the rumen, impaction of the third
stomach, paresis of the rumen, general debility, peritoneal adhesions
affecting the viscus, tuberculosis, actinomycosis or other morbid
productions in its walls, hernia of the reticulum into the chest, hard
stercoral, hair or wool balls, or masses or foreign bodies in the
rumen, and the ingestion of a very fermentescible quality of food.
When the rumen is affected by catarrh or paresis or debility, even
ordinary food will lead to tympany, but much more so any food to
which the animal has been unaccustomed (green for dry, or dry for
green, grain for grass or hay, or beans or peas for grain). Also food in
process of fermentation, or the seat of fungoid growth.
Again, so intimately related are the different stomachs that
derangement of one instantly impairs the functions of the other, and
thus a slowly progressive impaction of the third stomach leads to
torpor of the first, and the aggregation of more or less of its contents
into solid, fermenting masses. In the same way congestion of either
the third or fourth stomach impairs the functions of the rumen and
induces tympany.
Morbid conditions affecting the functions of the œsophagus and
interfering with rumination and eructation of gas are familiar causes.
For example, strictures and saccular dilations of the tube, and
enlargements—tubercular, sarcomatous, actinomycotic,—of the
mediastinal glands.
The symptoms do not differ from those of acute tympany
excepting that they are less severe; and are continuous or remittent,
suffering a material aggravation after feeding. Rumination may be
suppressed or tardy, the bowels also are torpid, the fæces glazed, and
the ordinary intestinal rumbling little marked. When the tympany
has temporarily subsided, the knuckles, pressed into the left side, can
often be made to strike against the hard, solid impacted mass of
ingesta. Symptoms of impacted manifolds may also be patent and
the patient steadily loses condition.
Treatment must be directed toward the removal of the special
cause of the trouble, and if this cannot be secured, as in tuberculosis,
the case is hopeless. In cases of solid masses in the rumen the free
use of common salt with a drachm of hydrochloric acid, and one
grain strychnine with each meal, and a free access to water may
succeed. The food had best be restricted to gruels and sloppy mashes.
The daily use of electricity through the region of the paunch is an
important accessory. The common salt may be increased as required,
so as to keep up a very relaxed condition of the bowels.
In obstinate cases of this kind puncture may be resorted to and an
attempt made to break down the impacted masses with a steel rod
introduced through the cannula. Should this also fail the solid
masses or foreign bodies may be extracted by rumenotomy.
In simple catarrh of the rumen the continued use of strychnine
with gentian, and sulphate of iron, may prove successful under a
carefully regulated diet. Oil of turpentine, balsam of copaiba, or
balsam of tolu may also prove useful, or in other cases extract of
hamamelis, or of wild cherry bark. While strychnine and electricity
are to be preferred to rouse the muscular activity of the viscus, such
agents as tartar emetic, emetine, apomorphin, eserine, pilocarpin
and barium chloride are recommended and may be resorted to in
case of necessity.
 OVERLOADED (IMPACTED) RUMEN.

Definition. Causes, excess of rich unwonted food, gastric torpor, paresis,

starvation, debility, partially ripened, poisonous seeds, paralyzing fungi or
bacteria, lead, cyanides, congestion of rumen, chlorophyll, acrids, dry, fibrous
innutritious food, lack of water, enforced rest on dry food, over-exertion, salivary
fistula or calculus, diseased teeth or jaws, senility. Symptoms, suspended
rumination, inappetence, anxious expression, arched back, bulging pendent left
flank, impressible, no friction sounds, excessive crepitation, hurried breathing,
colics, grunting when moved, diarrhœa, stupor, cyanosis. Signs of improvement.
Phrenic rupture. Diagnosis from tympany, pneumonia, or gastro-intestinal catarrh.
Treatment, hygienic, antiseptic, stimulants, puncturing, purgation, rumenotomy.

Definition. The overdistension of the rumen with solid food is

characterized by two things, the excess of ingesta which produces the
torpor or paresis which is common to all over-filled hollow viscera,
and the comparative absence of fermentation and evolution of gas. If
the ingesta is of a more fermentescible nature the rapid evolution of
gas occurs before this degree of repletion with solid matters can be
reached, and the case becomes one of tympany, but if the contents
are comparatively lacking in fermentability they may be devoured in
such quantity as to cause solid impaction.
Causes. Overloading of the rumen is especially common as the
result of a sudden access to rich or tempting food to which the
animal has been unaccustomed. Accidental admittance to the
cornbin, breaking into a field of rich grass, clover, alfalfa, corn,
sorghum, vetches, tares, beans, peas, or grain, or into a barrel of
potatoes or apples will illustrate the common run of causes. A pre-
existing or accompanying torpor or paresis of the stomach is a most
efficient concurrent cause, hence the affection is especially common
in animals debilitated by disease or starvation, but which have
become convalescent or have been suddenly exposed to the
temptation of rich food. For the same reason it is most likely to occur
with food which contains a paralyzing element, as in the case of the
following when they have gone to seed but are not yet fully ripened:
Rye grass, intoxicating rye grass, millet, Hungarian grass, vetches,
tares and other leguminosæ, and to a less extent, wheat, barley, oats
and Indian corn. The same may come from the paralyzing products
of fungi or bacteria in musty fodder or of such chemical poisons as
lead, and the cyanides.
A catarrhal affection of the rumen, and the congestion produced by
irritant plants, green food with an excess of chlorophyll, and the
whole list of irritants and narcotico-acrids, will weaken the first
stomach and predispose to overdistension.
Anything which lessens the normal vermicular movements of the
rumen and hinders regurgitation and rumination tends to impaction,
and hence an aliment which is to a large extent fibrous, innutritious,
and unfermentable, such as hay from grass that has run to seed and
been threshed, the stems of grasses that have matured and withered
in the pastures, fodder that has been thoroughly washed out by heavy
rains, sedges, reedgrass, rushes, chaff, finely cut straw, and in the
case of European sheep, the fibrous tops of heather contribute to this
affection. Lack of water is one of the most potent factors, as an
abundance of water to float the ingesta is an essential condition of
rumination. Hence pasturage on dry hillsides, prairies or plains,
apart from streams, wells or ponds is especially dangerous unless
water is supplied artificially, and the winter season in our Northern
states, when the sources of drinking water are frozen over, and when
the chill of the liquid forbids its free consumption, is often hurtful.
Gerard attributes the affection to constant stabulation. This,
however, has a beneficial as well as a deleterious side. It undermines
the health and vigor, and through lack of tone favors gastric torpor
and impaction, but it also secures ample leisure for rumination,
which is so essential to the integrity of the rumen and favors the
onward passage of its contents. With dry feeding and a restricted
water supply it cannot be too much condemned, but with succulent
food and abundance of water the alleged danger is reduced to the
minimum.
Active work and over exertion of all kinds must be admitted as a
factor. At slow work the ox can still ruminate, but in rapid work or
under heavy draft this is impossible, and the contained liquids may
pass over from rumen to manifolds conducing to impaction of the
former, or fermentations may take place, swelling up the mass of
ingesta and distending the walls of the first stomach. Similarly, cattle
and sheep that are hurried off on a rapid march with full stomachs
are greatly exposed to both tympany and impaction.
In speaking of dry, fibrous food and lack of water as factors, we
must avoid the error of supposing that succulent or aqueous food is a
sure preventive. In a catarrhal condition of the rumen or in a state of
debility, impaction may readily occur from the excessive ingestion of
luscious grass, wheat bran, potatoes, apples, turnips, beets, or
cabbage.
Finally defects in the anterior part of the alimentary tract may tend
to impaction. Salivary fistula or calculus cutting off the normal
supply of liquid necessary for rumination, tends to retention and
engorgement. Diseased teeth and jaws interfering with both the
primary and secondary mastication has the same vicious tendency.
Old cows, oxen and sheep in which the molar teeth are largely worn
out, suffer in the same way, especially when put up to fatten or
otherwise heavily fed. In this case there is the gastric debility of old
age as an additional inimical feature.
Symptoms. These vary with the quantity and kind of ingesta also
to some extent with the previous condition of the rumen, sound or
diseased. They usually set in more slowly than in tympany. On the
whole the disease appears to be more common in the stable than at
pasture. The animal neither feeds nor ruminates, stands back from
the manger, becomes dull, with anxious expression of the face,
arching of the back and occasional moaning especially if made to
move. The abdomen is distended but especially on the left side,
which however hangs more downward and outward and tends less to
rise above the level of the hip bone than in tympany. If it does rise
above the ilium this is due to gas and it is then elastic, resilient and
resonant on percussion at that point. The great mass, and usually the
whole of the paunch is nonresonant when percussed, retains the
imprint of the fingers when pressed, and gives the sensation of a
mass of dough. The hand applied on the region of the paunch fails to
detect the indication of movements which characterize the healthy
organ. The ear applied misses the normal friction sound, but detects
a crepitant sound due to the evolution of bubbles of gas from the
fermenting mass. This is especially loud if the impaction is one of
green food or potatoes, even though the gas remains as bubbles
throughout the entire fermenting mass, instead of separating to form
a gaseous area beneath the lumbar transverse processes.
The respiration is hurried, labored and accompanied with a moan,
the visible mucosæ are congested, the eyes are protruded and glassy
from dilatation of the pupils, the feet are propped outward, and the
head extended on the neck. There may be signs of dull colicy pains,
movements of the tail and shifting of the hind feet, in some cases the
patient may even lie down but never remains long recumbent. There
may be occasional passages of semi-liquid manure, though usually
the bowels are torpid and neither passages nor rumbling sounds on
the right side can be detected. When moved the animal usually
grunts or moans at each step, and especially when going down hill,
owing to the concussion of the stomach on the diaphragm. In cases
due to green food the irritation may extend to the fourth stomach
and intestines and a crapulous diarrhœa may ensue. The
temperature remains normal as a rule. The disease is more
protracted than tympany, yet after several hours of suffering and
continual aggravation the dullness may merge into stupor, the
mucosæ become cyanotic and death ensues from shock, asphyxia, or
apoplexy.
Course. Termination. Many cases recover in connection with a
restoration of the contractions of the rumen, the eructation of gas, in
some rare cases vomiting or spasmodic rejection of quantities of the
ingesta, and the passage of gas by the bowels. This may be associated
with a watery diarrhœa, and loud rumbling of the right side, which
may continue for twenty-four hours or longer. With the subsidence
of the diarrhœa there comes a return of health, or there may remain
slight fever, inappetence, suspended or impaired rumination,
dullness, listlessness, and a mucous film on the fæces. This indicates
some remaining gastro-enteritis.
In some instances there is rupture of the diaphragm with marked
increase in the abdominal pain and the difficulty of breathing. In
others there is a laceration of the inner and middle coats of the
rumen so that the gas diffuses under the peritoneum and may even
be betrayed by an emphysematous extravasation under the skin.
 Diagnosis. From tympany this is easily distinguished by the
general dullness on percussion, the persistence of the indentation
caused by pressure, the outward and downward rather than the
upward extension of the swelling, and the slower development of the
affection.
It is far more likely to be confounded with pneumonia, which it
resembles in the hurried, labored breathing, the moans emitted in
expiration, in the dullness on percussion over the posterior part of
the chest, it may be even forward to the shoulders, and in the
cyanotic state of the mucosæ. The distinction is easily made by the
absence of hyperthermia, and of crepitation along the margins of the
nonresonant areas in the lungs, by the fact that the area of chest
dullness covers the whole posterior part of the thorax to a given
oblique line, and by the history of the case and the manifest
symptoms of overloaded stomach, not with gas but with solids. From
gastro-intestinal catarrh it may be distinguished by the more rapid
advance of the symptoms and by the absence of the slight fever
which characterizes the latter.
Treatment. Slight cases may be treated by hygienic measures only.
Walking the animal uphill, injections of cold water, friction on the
left side of the abdomen to rouse the rumen to activity, antiseptics as
in tympany to check further fermentation, and stimulants to
overcome the nervous and muscular torpor, may be employed
separately or conjointly. When it can be availed of, a rubber hose
may be wound round the abdomen and a current of cold water forced
through it.
When further measures are demanded we should evacuate any gas
through the probang or a cannula, as in tympany, and thus relieve
tension and then resort to stimulants and purgatives. Common salt 1
℔. is of value in checking fermentation, and may be added to 1 ℔.
Glauber salts in four or five quarts of warm water. A drachm of
strong aqua ammonia or 2 oz. oil of turpentine and ½ drachm of nux
vomica may be added. Bouley advocated tartar emetic (2 to 3
drachms), and Lafosse ipecacuan (1 oz. of the wine) to rouse the
walls of the rumen, and more recently pilocarpin (ox 3 grs.), eserine
(ox 2 grs.) and barium chloride (ox 15 grs.), have offered themselves
for this purpose. The three last have the advantage of adaptability to
hypodermic use, and prompt action. The repetition of stimulants and
nux vomica may be continued while there appears any prospect of
restoring the normal functions of the paunch, and when all other
measures fail the only hope lies in rumenotomy.
Rumenotomy. The warrant for this operation is found in the
entire lack of movement in the rumen, the absence of eructation, the
cessation of rumbling and motion of the bowels, and the deepening
of the stupor in which the patient is plunged. The longer the delay
and the deeper the stupor and prostration the less the likelihood of a
successful issue from the operation. The animal is made to stand
with its right side against a wall, and its nose held by the fingers or
bulldog forceps. If judged necessary a rope may be passed from a
ring in the wall in front of the shoulder around the animal to another
ring behind the thigh and held tight. Or a strong bar with a fulcrum
in front, may be pressed against the left side of the body, and well
down so as to keep the right side fast against the wall. A line may be
clipped from the point of election for puncture in tympany down for
a distance of six inches. A sharp pointed knife is now plunged
through the walls of the abdomen and rumen in the upper part of
this line, and is slowly withdrawn, cutting downward and outward
until the opening is large enough to admit the hand. The lips of the
wound in the overdistended stomach will now bulge out through to
the wound in the abdominal walls, and three stitches on each side
may be taken through these structures to prevent displacement as
the stomach is emptied and rendered more flaccid. A cloth wrung out
of a mercuric chloride solution may be laid in the lower part of the
wound to guard against any escape of liquid into the peritoneal
cavity. The contents may now be removed with the hand, until the
organ has been left but moderately full. Two or three stable
bucketfuls are usually taken, but it is by no means necessary nor
desirable that the rumen be left empty, as a moderate amount of food
is requisite to ensure its functional activity. As a rule at least fifty
pounds should be left. Before closing the wound and especially in
cases due to dry feeding, it is well in a tolerably large animal to
introduce the hand through the demicanal to ascertain if impactions
exist in the third stomach and to break up these so far as they can be
reached. This done, the edges of the wound in the stomach are to be
carefully cleansed, washed with the mercuric chloride solution and
sewed together with carbolated catgut, care being taken to turn the
mucosa inward and to retain the muscular and peritoneal layers in
close contact with each other. It will usually be convenient to cut first
the two lower stitches through the abdominal walls, and suture from
below upward. When finished the peritoneal surface of the gastric
wound may be again sponged with the mercuric chloride solution,
together with the edges of the wound in the abdominal walls. Finally
the abdominal wound is sutured, the stitches including the skin only
or the muscular tissues as well. The smooth surface of the paunch
acts as an internal pad and support, and with due care as to
cleanliness, antisepsis and accuracy of stitching, it is rare to find any
drawback to continuous and perfect healing. It is well to restrict the
animal for three days to well boiled gruels, and for ten days to soft
mashes in very moderate amount lest the wound in the paunch
should be fatally burst open before a solid union has been effected.
 RUMINITIS. INFLAMMATION OF THE
RUMEN.
Prevalence in different genera. Causes, as in tympany and impaction, irritants,
specific fevers. Symptoms: impaired rumination, tympanies, impactions, depraved
appetite, fever, nervous disorders. Lesions: hyperæmia, petechiæ, exudates, ulcers,
desquamation, swollen or shrunken papillæ. Treatment: remove cause,
mucilaginous food, or gruels, sodium sulphate, or chloride, bismuth, bitters,
mustard cataplasm, electricity.
This is not a prevalent disease but affects animals at all periods of
life and is a cause of tardy and difficult digestion and rumination. It
usually shows itself as a catarrhal inflammation and by favoring
fermentation in the food, and torpor of the muscular walls of the
organ contributes to tympany and impaction. It is more common in
the ox than in the sheep owing, perhaps, to the more habitual
overloading of the stomach and to the hurried, careless manner of
feeding. In the goat it is rare.
Causes. Among the causes may be named tympany and
overloading, so that all the dietary faults that lead to these may be set
down as causes of inflammation. Irritants taken with the food,
whether in the form of acrid plants (ranunculaceæ, euphorbiaceæ,
etc.), musty fodder, irritant products in spoiled fodder, aliments
which are swallowed while very hot or in a frozen state, and foreign
bodies of an irritating kind are especially liable to induce it.
Congestions of the paunch are not uncommon in specific infectious
diseases like Rinderpest, malignant catarrh, anthrax, and Texas
fever, and specific eruptions sometimes appear in aphthous fever
and sheeppox.
Symptoms. Rumination is slow and irregular, appetite capricious,
tympanies appear after each feed, and there is a marked tendency to
aggregation of the ingesta in solid masses, which resist the
disintegration and floating which is necessary to rumination, and
favor the occurrence of putrid fermentation. There is usually a
tendency to lick earth, lime from the walls, and the manger, and a
depraved appetite shown in a desire to chew and swallow foreign
bodies of many kinds. Vomiting or convulsive rejection of the
contents of the rumen is not unknown (Vives, Pattaes). There is
slight fever with heat of the horns and ears, dry muzzle, and
tenderness to pressure on the left flank. The bowels may be
alternately relaxed and confined, and bad cases may end in a fatal
diarrhœa. In other cases the disease may become acute and develop
nervous symptoms, as in tympany and impaction. When the disease
takes a favorable turn, under a careful ration, recovery may be
complete in eight or ten days.
Lesions. These are violet or brownish patches of hyperæmia on the
mucosa of the rumen, circumscribed ecchymoses, exudates in the
sense of false membranes and even pin’s head ulcerations. On the
affected portions the mucosa is swollen, puffy, dull and covered with
mucus, and epithelium may desquamate. The papillæ are often red,
and thickened or shrunken and shortened. In the specific affections
like aphthous fever and sheeppox the lesions are rounded vesicles
containing liquid. The ingesta is more or less packed in masses.
Treatment. If irritant foreign bodies have been taken rumenotomy
is demanded. If caustic alkalies, acetic or other mild acid. If acids,
lime water or magnesia. Feed well boiled flax seed, or farina gruels,
and wheat bran or middlings in limited quantity. Solids may be at
first withheld, coarse or indigestible food must be. It may be
necessary to rouse the organ by 10 or 12 ozs. of sulphate of soda with
a little common salt and abundance of thin gruels as drink. As a tonic
the animal may take nitrate of bismuth ½ oz., powdered gentian ½
oz., and nux vomica 20 grains, twice a day. The application of a
mustard pulp or of oil of turpentine on the left side of the abdomen
may also be resorted to. A weak current of electricity through the
region of the paunch for twenty minutes daily is often of great
service.
 HAIR BALLS IN THE RUMEN AND
RETICULUM. EGAGROPILES.
Balls of hair, wool, clover hairs, bristles, paper, oat-hair, feathers, chitin, mucus,
and phosphates. Causes: Sucking and licking pilous parts, eating hairy or fibrous
products. Composition. Symptoms: Slight, absent, or, gulping eructation,
vomiting, tympany, in young putrid diarrhœa, fœtid exhalations, emaciation.
Diagnosis. Treatment.
Definition. The term egagropile, literally goat-hair, has been given
to the felted balls of wool or hair found in the digestive organs of
animals. The term has been applied very widely, however, to
designate all sorts of concretions of extraneous matters which are
found in the intestinal canal. In cattle the hair licked from their skin
and that of their fellows rolled into a ball by the action of the
stomach and matted firmly together with mucus and at times traces
of phosphates, are the forms commonly met with. In sheep two
forms are seen, one consisting of wool matted as above and one
made up of the fine hairs from the clover leaf similarly matted and
rolled into a ball.
In pigs the felted mass is usually composed of bristles,
(exceptionally of paper or other vegetable fibre), and in horses felted
balls of the fine hairs from the surface of the oat, mingled with more
or less mucus and phosphate of lime make up the concretion. These
are found in the stomach, and intestines. In predatory birds the
feathers and in insectivorous birds chitinous masses are formed in
the gizzard and rejected by vomiting.
Causes. Suckling animals obtain the hair from the surface of the
mammary glands hence an abundance of hair or wool on these parts
favors their production. The vicious habit of calves of sucking the
scrotum and navel of others is another cause. In the young and adult
alike the habit of licking themselves and others especially at the
period of moulting is a common factor.
Composition. Hair, wool, and the fine hairs of clover are the
common predominant constituents, but these are matted together
more or less firmly by mucus and phosphates, the ammonia-
magnesian phosphate uniting with the mucus and other matters in
forming a smooth external crust in the old standing balls of adult
animals. The centre of such balls is made up of the most densely
felted hair. In balls of more recent formation the external crust is
lacking and the mass is manifestly hairy on the surface, and the
density uniform throughout. These have a somewhat aromatic odor,
contain very little moisture, and have a specific gravity
approximating .716 (sheep) to .725 (ox). Ellagic, and lithofellic acids,
derivatives of tannin, are usually present, and are abundant in the
egagropiles of antilopes.
In the balls of recent formation, as seen especially in sucking
calves, the hair is only loosely matted together, and often intermixed
with straw and hay, and is saturated with liquid and heavier than the
old masses. These are usually the seat of active putrefactive
fermentation, and being occasionally lodged in the third or even the
fourth stomach, the septic products act as local irritants, and general
poisons. They are therefore far more injurious than the consolidated
hairballs of the adult animal, and often lay the foundation of septic
diarrhœas and gastro-enteritis.
The balls may be spherical, elliptical, ovoid, or, when flattened by
mutual compression, discoid.
Symptoms. Generally these balls cause no appreciable disturbance
of the functions of the stomach. This is especially true of the large,
old and smoothly encrusted masses. The museum of the N. Y. S. V.
College contains specimens of 5½ inches in diameter, found after
death in a fat heifer, which had always had good health and which
was killed for beef. This is the usual history of such formations, they
are not suspected during life, and are only found accidentally when
the rumen is opened in the abattoir.
The smaller specimens, the size of a hen’s or goose’s egg, or a
billiard ball, have produced severe suffering, with gulping,
eructation, vomiting and tympany from obstruction of the demicanal
or gullet, and such symptoms continued until the offending agents
were rejected by the mouth. (Caillau, Leblanc, Prevost, Giron). Again
they may block the passage from the first to the third stomach
(Schauber, Feldamann, Adamovicz, Tyvaert, Mathieu).
In calves on milk they are especially injurious as beside the
dangers of blocking the passages already referred to, the unencrusted
hairs and straws irritate the mucous membranes and still worse, the
putrid fermentations going on in their interstices, produce irritant
and poisonous products, and disseminate the germs of similar
fermentations in the fourth stomach and intestine. Here the
symptoms are bloating, colics, impaired or irregular appetite, fœtid
diarrhœa, fœtor of the breath and cutaneous exhalations, and rapidly
progressive emaciation.
Diagnosis is too often impossible. Tympanies, diarrhœa, colics,
etc., may lead to suspicion, but unless specimens of the smaller hair
balls are rejected by the mouth or anus there can be no certainty of
their presence. If arrested in the cervical portion of the gullet they
may be pressed upward into the mouth by manipulations applied
from without. The looped wire extractor may be used on any portion
of the œsophagus. If lodged in the demicanal the passage of a
probang will give prompt relief. If retained in the rumen and
manifestly hurtful, rumenotomy is called for as soon as a diagnosis
can be made.