COLIC. 649 



changes and disturbances, it lias been proposed to regard colic, 

 which in the general or extended sense is recognised as the 

 mere expression of abdominal pain, under the distinctive appel- 

 lations of true and false. The former of these being restricted 

 to those cases where the exhibition of pain is most surely in- 

 dicative of intestinal changes and disturbance ; the latter, where 

 the exhibitional phenomena are attributable to organic changes 

 or functional disturbance of organs and structures connected 

 more or less intimately either through function or contiguity, 

 or not at all, with the intestinal tube. 



Again, from regarding what we may consider as the im- 

 mediate factors in the production of this disturbance, or the 

 modes in which these operate in inducing the usually recog- 

 nised symptoms, we have come to speak of the condition by 

 such terms as spasmodic colic, flatulent colic, verminous 

 colic, etc. 



True or intestinal colic, as ordinarily encountered, may safely 

 be regarded as iinmediately originating, in the greater number 

 of cases, from a spasmodic condition of the intestinal tube, 

 as characterized by exhibiting a tendency to self-relief, as not 

 essentially inflammatory, nor yet largely disposed to run on 

 to inflammatory action of the bowel unless improperly treated. 

 Although immediately traceable to interference with the normal 

 functional activity of the intestine, this disturbance of function 

 owes its origin to a variety of causes. We say not largely 

 disposed to run on to inflammatory action, because to assert 

 that it never does terminate in this more serious morbid con- 

 dition would be to state what neither the observation nor 

 experience of the majority can corroborate. It has long, with 

 many who have had large experience in the treatment of bowel 

 affections of the horse, been deemed axiomatic that unrelieved 

 colic is a fruitful source of enteric inflammation ; the absolute 

 truth of this seems open to doubt. 



From my own experience I am rather disposed to regard 

 the majority of the cases of fatal intestinal inflammations as 

 having been inflammatory from their origin, and that the 

 greater proportion of functional disturbances of the digestive 

 tube of a spasmodic character continue to maintain this 

 character throughout their course ; that many, not the whole 

 certainly, of the bowel affections which terminate by the ac- 



