404 IOWA DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE 
sour and enough of its scrapings are given with the food to produce 
flatulent (wind) colic. A small amount of salt should always be mixed 
with food. Bad hay should never be cut simply because it insures a 
greater consumption of it; bad foods are dear at any price and should 
never be fed. 
I have before spoken of the advantage of boiling roots. Not only 
does this render them less liable to produce digestive disorders, but it, 
also makes them clean. Boiling or steaming grains is to be recom- 
mended when the teeth are poor, or when the digestive organs are weak. 
Of ensilage as a food for horses I have no experience, but am inclined 
to think that (and this opinion is based upon the imperfect manner in 
which the crop is often stored) disordered digestion would be more 
frequent were it extensively fed. 
COLIC. 
Colic. — The disease of the horse that is most frequently met with is 
what it termed "colic," and many are the remedies that are reputed to 
be "sure cures" for this disease. Let us discover, then, what the word 
"colic" means. This term is applied loosely to almost all diseases of the 
organs of the abdomen that are accompanied by pain. If the horse 
evinces abdominal pain, he is likely to be put down as suffering with 
colic, no matter whether the difficulty be a cramp of the bowel, an inter- 
nal hernia, overloading of the stomach, or a painful disease of the 
bladder or the liver. Since these conditions differ so much in their causa- 
tion and their nature, it is manifestly absurd to treat them alike and to 
expect the same drugs or procedures to relieve them all. Therefore it is 
important that the various diseased states that are so roughly classed 
together as colic shall so far as possible, be separated and individualized 
in order that appropriate treatments may be prescribed. With this ob- 
ject in view, colics will be considered under the following headings: (1) 
engorgement colic; (2) obstruction colic; (3) tympanitic colic; (4) 
spasmodic colic; (5) worm colic. 
'iiie general symptoms of abdominal pain, and therefore of colic are 
restlessness, cessation of whatever the horse is about, lying down, look- 
ing around toward the flank, kicking with the hind feet upward and 
forward toward the belly, jerky switching of the tail, stretching as though 
to urinate, frequent change of position, and groaning. In the more in- 
tense forms the horse plunges about, throws himself down, rolls, as- 
sumes unnatural positions, as sitting on the haunches, and grunts 
loudly. Usually the pain is not constant, and during the period of pain 
sweat is poured out freely. Sometimes the horse moves constantly in a 
circle. The respirations are accelerated, and usually there is no fever. 
(1) Engorgement Colic.— This form of colic consists in an overloading 
of the stomach with food. The horse may have overfed or the food may 
have collected in the stomach through failure of this organ to digest it 
and pass it backward into the intestines. Even a normal amount of 
food that the horse is unaccustomed to may cause disease. Hence a 
sudden change of food may produce engorgement colic. Continued full 
