DISEASES OF HORSES. 379 



The belly should bo well rubbed with a brush or warm cloth, 

 but not bruised and injured by the broom-handle rubbed over 

 it, with all their strength, by two great fellows. The horse 

 should be WftUted about, or trotted moderately. The motion 

 thus produced in the bowels, and the friction of one intestine 

 over the other, may relax the spasm, but the hasty gallop 

 might speedily cause inflammation to succeed to colic. Clys- 

 ters of warm water, or containing a solution of aloes, should 

 be injected. The patent syringe will here be exceedingly 

 useful. A clyster of tobacco-smoke may be thrown up as a 

 last resort. When relief has been obtained, the clothing of 

 the horse, saturated with perspiration, should be removed, 

 and fresh and dry clothes substituted. He should be well 

 littered down in a warm stable or box, and have bran mashes 

 and lukewarm water for the two or three next days. Some 

 persons give gin, or gin and pepper, or even spirit of pimento, 

 in cases of gripes. This course of proceeding is, however, 

 exceedingly objectionable. It may be useful, or even suffi- 

 cient, in ordinary cases of colic ; but if there should be any 

 inflammation or tendency to inflammation, it cannot fail to be 

 highly injurious. 



FLATULENT roLir. This is altogether a different disease 

 from the former. It is not spasm of the bowels, but inflation of 

 them from the presence of gas emitted by undigested food. 

 Whether collected in the stomach, or small or large intestines, 

 all kinds of vegetable matter are liable to ferment. In con- 

 sequence of this fermentation, gas is evolved to a greater or 

 less extent perhaps to twenty or thirty times the bulk of the 

 food. This may take place in the stomach ; and if so, the 

 life of the horse is in immediate danger, for the animal has 

 no power to expel this dangerous flatus by eructation. 



The symptoms, according to Professor Stewart, are, "the 

 horse suddenly slackening his pace preparing to lie down, 

 or falling down as if he were shot. In the stable he paws 

 the ground with his fore feet, lies down, rolls, starts up all at 

 once, and throw's himself down again with great violence, 

 looking wistfully at his flanks, and making many fruitless 

 attempts to void his urine." The treatment is considerably 

 different from that of spasmodic colic. The spirit of pimento 

 would be. here allowed, or the turpentine and opium drink ; 

 but if the pain, and especially the swelling, do not abate, the 

 gas, which is the cause of it, must be got rid of, or the ani- 

 mal is inevitably lost. This is usually or almost invariably 

 a combination of hydrogen with some other gas. It has a 



