COLIC AND INFLAMMATION OF THE INTESTINES. 267 



It is always advisable, after an attack of colic, to prepare the horse 

 for physic, unless the bowels have been relieved by medicine during the 

 progress of the disease. In all cases there must have been a cause for 

 the disease — sometimes perhaps in the food, which has irritated the 

 intestines, or from various causes there may be a disordered state of the , 

 stomach. In many, if not in most cases, the preparation for physic will 

 be sufficient without actually giving the dose. Unless some such pre- 

 caution is taken, the attack is apt to recur. 



Slight cases of colic with intermissions of considerable intervals are 

 sometimes continuous for several days. The bowels do not respond 

 freely to the effect of the cathartic medicine, and slight pains return at 

 intervals. Such cases are always dangerous. They seem to arise from 

 some defect in the biliary secretions. They are best treated by adminis- 

 tering one scruple of calomel on the tongue, followed by a pint of linseed 

 oil. On the recurrence of the pains an ounce and a half of nitric ether, 

 or a pint of beer may be given. 



If Colic supervenes, as is sometimes the case, on the action of the 

 physic, it will of course be unadvisable to give more cathartics. Small 

 doses of ether and tincture of opium will then be the appropriate treat- 

 ment. 



INFLAMMATION OF THE INTESTINES. 

 541. Peritonitis and Enteritis. 



From Colic we may pass on to Inflammation of the Intestines. This 

 disease may begin in the serous or outer membrane of the intestines, in 

 which case it is known as Peritonitis ; or it may have its origin in the 

 muscular and mucous coats, when it takes the name of Enteritis. 



Inflammation may also exist in, and be confined to the mucous mem- 

 brane or internal lining of the intestines, producing the disease known 

 as dysentery. This disease, though common in man, is very rare in the 

 horse. It is totally distinct in its origin and nature from peritonitis and 

 enteritis, and is easily known by the excessive purging which accom- 

 panies it. 



Pure Peritonitis, except as the result of an external wound such as 

 that caused by a stake, or by some wound of the peritonemn, or by 

 castration, or by an over-strain in galloping or leaping, is seldom met 

 with. Pure Enteritis is perhaps equally rare. In good truth the serous, 

 muscular, and mucous membranes of the intestines are so intimately 

 connected, that inflammation in the one rapidly involves the other. Tlie 

 l)rincipal seat of the inflammation is however always in the muscular 

 rather than in the other membranes, because that coat, as previously 

 slated, is far the most vascular. 



542. >Sijiiq)toins. 



The symptoms of peritonitis and enteritis are much alike ; and as the 

 treatment required is the same in either case, the two diseases may, for 

 all practical purposes, be considered as one. 



I 



