DIGESTIVE DISORDERS 



draught in a couple of hours, using one half the quantity. Send 

 for professional assistance, and the sooner the better. 



INFLAMMATION OF BOWELS. 



The horse is a very common sufferer from inflammation of 

 the bowels, proceeding from internal irritation (worms, etc.), 

 but very commonly the result of twisting, or telescoping of 

 some portion of the bowels. Strangulation of the gut, through 

 rupture, is not uncommonly a cause of intestinal (bowel) in- 

 flammation. A puncture of the belly, and blows from without, 

 may be productive of like results. 



The same may be said when the bowel becomes blocked 

 up by accumulated food materials. Concretions are liable to 

 act in a like manner. In the writer's opinion, inflammation 

 of the bowels in the horse is hardly ever brought on through 

 cold, damp, etc. Again, we believe that colic, as a purely spas- 

 modic affection from the beginning, never ends in bowel inflam- 

 mation. There is no evidence to show one that such has ever 

 taken place. It is purely a matter of assumption, without the 

 slightest basis for foundation. 



Poisons rank amongst other causes of bowel iaflammation, 

 associated with an inflamed condition of the stomach. In 

 anthrax, the bowels may participate, and become inflamed. In 

 a record of 120 cases of bowel inflammation, eighty-eight were 

 said to be due to irritation of worms ; the chief mischief-maker 

 being the blood sucking worm, or four-spined strongyle. The 

 inflammation is commonly in the large bowels, and begins 

 usually in the lining membrane of the gut, but in twist, etc., 

 the whole thickness of the bowel paiticipates equally. 



281 



