SUPEEPURGATION 289 



advisable to assist its removal with oleaginous fluids, as a dose of castor- 

 oil in warm milk, or linseed-tea, or the distinctly acid nature of the 

 evacuations may point to the use of alkaline bicarbonates as a preparatory 

 measure. Abdominal pain will need to be combated with opium, and 

 cordial carminatives, as cassia, and cinnamon, and ginger, with such 

 diffusible stimulants as nitrous ether, which may be given in gruel. The 

 necessity for giving some fluid food consists in the irritable surface upon 

 which it will have contact, and as soon as there is good reason to hope 

 that the irritability has subsided a return to dry food is advised, as the 

 majority of horses will continue to be loose in the bowels while confined 

 to a diet of slops. As an intermediate diet between gruel and hard food 

 we may use steeped barley and scalded oats, or oatmeal, with milk and 

 eggs well whipped. A mixture of chalk and laudanum suspended in gum 

 and peppermint-water is an old and efficacious remedy, much used for 

 the young. In the treatment of sucking colts it will usually be advisable 

 to give a moderate dose of castor -oil before administering any of the 

 ordinary diarrhoea mixtures. Bismuth, either as a powder or added to 

 the chalk-and-opium mixture, is much favoured in cases of some duration. 

 Lime-water, or bicarbonate of soda in the drinking-water of the mare, will 

 often materially affect the milk and allay intestinal irritation in the foal. 



SUPERPUEGATION 



Definition. — This term is used to describe an artificially-induced 

 diarrhoea by the injudicious use of purgative medicines. 



Causes. — The administration of a dose of purgative medicine too 

 large for the patient, or its repetition in too short a time. It often 

 happens that an aloetic ball is given without due preparation, and failing 

 to have the desired effect within the usual time, the inexperienced 

 attendant repeats the dose, with the result that the bowels are unduly 

 excited. Drinking a great quantity of cold water when the ball has 

 been given on an empty stomach, or calling upon the patient for toe- 

 much exertion before the purgative has ceased to act, will also induce 

 it in some susceptible animals. Calomel, even in small doses, will some- 

 times provoke superpurgation when given during an attack of influenza 

 fever, as is sometimes done where bilious complications arise. 



Symptoms. — Frequent and excessive evacuation of the fluid contents 

 of the bowels, loss of appetite, cold extremities, weak pulse, and in 

 severe cases, in which there is considerable danger to life, the eyes 

 assume a glassy appearance, and the odour of the breath and that of the 

 evacuations become very offensive. There is great prostration and weak- 



