658 INTESTINAL SYMPTOMS AND FUNCTIONAL DISORDERS. 



termination more rapidly follows tliis condition of excessive 

 tympany through the occurrence of such lesions as rupture of 

 the bowel — generally the colon — or of the diaphragm. 



Although colic or abdominal pain may be the common bond 

 of union which links together these different forms of disturbed 

 function, spasm of the bowel, accumulation of excrementitious 

 matter, and varying degrees of tympany, it is probable that its 

 most frequent manifestation is in connection with disturbance 

 which is a variable combination of all these individual condi- 

 tions ; the course, progress, and final result of each case de- 

 pending largely upon the prominence or position of one or 

 more of these individual forms of disturbed activity, as well 

 as on the manner in which this specific disturbance has been 

 induced. 



Course and Termination. — Both as to duration and termination 

 the various disordered states of the bowels recognised by the 

 name of colic are extremely variable. Very many, probably 

 the greater number of seizures, recover with very trifling or 

 no treatment whatever ; other cases, again, under recognised 

 methods of management, continue in pain, more or less marked, 

 through a period of two or three days and still recover. 



The greater number of animals which in an attack of colic 

 are considered sufficiently ill to be placed under medical 

 treatment can rarely be considered safe or removed from 

 danger as the consequence of the attack within a period less 

 than twelve hours, or until the bowels have responded to the 

 laxative medicine which it is generally safe and needful to ex- 

 hibit. In all protracted cases, with much restlessness and 

 pain, the danger to be apprehended is largely in the direction 

 of mechanical displacement or entanglement of the intestine, 

 which, when occurring, is all but certain to terminate fatally 

 in inflammatory action. AVhere tympany is excessive and 

 unrelieved, the chief risk is usually in the direction of the 

 occurrence of rupture of the large bowel or of the diaphragm. 

 The chance of the occurrence of these lesions, as also of 

 fractures, is much augmented when the horse during his 

 sufferings is confined in a stall or any situation where both 

 loins and feet may be made fixed points in his straining and 

 struggles. 



That cases of unrelieved and protracted colic, particularly 



