652 INTESTINAL SYMPTOMS AND FUNCTIONAL DISORDERS. 



2. Intestinal Obstruction from Concretions. — Obstructions 

 of a serious nature resulting from mechanical displacement and 

 change of position of different portions of the bowel, or from 

 impaction of concretions, usually, we are aware, in the course of 

 diseased activities give rise to colicky pain ; what we now refer 

 to, however, is occasional obstruction or arrest in the normal 

 activities connected with digestion from the presence of con- 

 cretions in the canal. The existence of these concretions, of 

 whatever materials they may be formed, is not necessarily 

 accompanied by colic ; probably they only induce this when, 

 by shifting from the position where they have long remained 

 undisturbed and undisturbing, they may have become tem- 

 porarily fixed in a situation where, by their obstructive influence, 

 they give rise to intestinal disturbance, arrest of function, re- 

 tention of excrementitious matter, with other undesirable 

 results culminating in, and evidenced by, the exhibition of 

 abdominal pain. 



As a rule it is the smaller calculi, or the concretions of the 

 variety formed largely by the agglutination around some special 

 nucleus of the fine cortical materials of the grains upon which 

 the animal may have been fed, or we should rather say obtained 

 from food largely composed of these inferior materials, which 

 create obstruction evidencing itself in abdominal pain. These 

 concretions — apparently from the facility, owing to their light- 

 ness, with which they may be moved from their usual position 

 by any extra peristaltic or other movement of the bowel — are 

 more likely to be offending agents than the larger, or those into 

 which mineral matters enter largely, and which, by their weight, 

 keep their retreat in some pouch of the large mtestine, in many 

 instances giving no indications of their existence. 



3. Parasitic Invasion of the Boivels and Contiguous 

 Organs. — Certain varieties of intestinal worms, particularly 

 those which inhabit the Avails of the intestines, and any variety 

 when excessively numerous, may produce disturbance and irri- 

 tation sufficient to develop well-marked symptoms of colic. 

 The disturbance, Avhen originating from this cause, is usually 

 of a recurrent type, attended with an irregular and unequal 

 state of the evacuations, and with general marasmus. Those 

 in which this form of helminthiasis appears are oftener the 

 young than the adult, usually under throe years of age, and 



