RUPTURE OF THE INTESTINE 



RUPTURE OF THE INTESTINE 



This condition is usually brought about by external violence acting 

 upon a distended or overloaded bowel, or it may result from over- 

 distension alone. The force with which a horse comes to the ground 

 when suffering a paroxysm of colic is not unlikely to occasion a rent 

 in the diseased gut, and the same may be said of horses thrown for 

 operative purposes while their bowels are loaded with food. If the 

 texture of the intestine is sound it is capable of very great strain without 

 fracture, but in some cases of rupture it has been predisposed by inflam- 

 matory softening. 



The symptoms of ruptured intestine are not very definite, it being 

 so often a sequel of other disturbances and not the primary cause of 

 illness. When, as sometimes happens after a full belly, a portion of 

 bowel becomes torn during extra or sudden exertion, there are tolerably 

 certain signs of what is the matter. Here the countenance wears the 

 impress of shock, which differs from the mere expression of pain. There 

 is a look of extreme anxiety and depression, cold extremities, rapidly- 

 falling pulse, hurried breathing, cold, patchy sweats, and the other train 

 of symptoms common to abdominal pain. This accident cannot well be 

 confounded with colic of the spasmodic kind, where there are remissions 

 of pain and restoration of pulse during the intervals. In this case the 

 pain is continuous and severe, and the pulse fails to recover any lost 

 power, even though stimulants be given; all that they do is to give 

 temporary support to the action of the heart. An unusual calm or 

 resignation soon comes over the patient, which is unwilling to move, and 

 persistently stands till the powers of life give out and he falls, either to 

 die immediately or after a few fruitless struggles. This cessation from 

 pain following on a bout of colic, when the animal has been very violent, 

 is misleading to the amateur, who will often assure the professional 

 attendant that the patient is better, though an examination of the mem- 

 branes of the eye, the pulse, temperature, respiration, and handling of the 

 extremities prove the contrary to anyone conversant with horses in health. 

 Sitting on the haunches has been thought by some to be diagnostic of 

 ruptured bowel, but this peculiar attitude may be assumed as the result 

 of pain from other causes. "We have said that with rupture generally 

 comes a period of relief from acute pain, but this is by no means constant; 

 on the contrary, all the symptoms may be aggravated, and instead of 

 stupor delirium may follow. 



Treatment is of course out of the question, and consideration for 



