REPORT ON THE DISEASES OF FARM HORSES. 305 



tive treatment will consist in adhering to good food and syste- 

 matic management. Tonics, as the sulphate of iron, will be needed 

 after the bowels have been evacuated. 



Volvulus or Ilius, Invagination or Intussusception, 

 Strangulation by Tumours, Hernia, &c, &c. — There are 

 various conditions recognised by the above titles to which farm 

 horses occasionally fall victims, the modus operandi of which, 

 however, are similar in their character. Their diagnosis is not 

 alv/ays certain during life, as symptoms resemble each other in 

 each case as much in likeness as in intensity. Usually the real 

 state of things is only developed on a P.M. examination. 

 The Symptoms are those of severe colic, protracted and intense ; 

 the pulse becomes quick at the commencement, and continues 

 to become more rapid, and after the crisis weak and imperceptible ; 

 the agony is unmitigated, and death takes place from 12 to 48 

 hours, or even extending to the third day. Volvulus or Ilius 

 consists in an entanglement of one or other of the portions of 

 intestines, occurring by rupture of the mesentery or caul, and 

 the passage of the gut over a band of the same becomes strangu- 

 lated, or in other words, circulation is stopped, and mortification 

 ensues. The colon has been known to turn over on its short 

 axis when the same effects occur. These states are brought 

 about by colic, during which the animal rolls — the weight of the 

 replete organs giving rise to the lesions referred to. Volvulus 

 is therefore incurable. 



Invagination or Intussusception is the passage of one portion 

 of intestine within another. Here also we have more or less 

 rupture of the mesentery, or strangulation of the intestines, both 

 the large and small being subject to it. 



Hernia is the passage of a portion of the intestinal tube into 

 a sac or unnatural cavity without the abdominal space. It is 

 usually a result of accident, and animals thus affected are said 

 to be broken bodied. The parts in which this state occurs are 

 the scrotum or purse, or only within the inguinal canal in the 

 groin. Here it is owing to an imperfect closure of this opening 

 within the abdomen which gives exit to the testicle at an early 

 age. It takes the name of Exomphalus when the state is 

 present at the navel, and simply Hernia when the rupture of 

 the abdominal walls in any portion gives rise to an intestinal 

 tumour within the skin. Other hernial states are known, as 

 the diaphragmatic, which, as stated under rupture of the dia- 

 phragm, admits of the passage of the abdominal viscera within 

 the chest. There are omental hernias, in which the omentum 

 protrudes, but these are not of a fatal character usually, besides 

 others which do not concern us much now. 



Hernia may become strangulated, and the symptoms mistaken 

 for colic j this is more common than has been thought, particularly 



