DILATION OF THE INTESTINE. 



Capacity ada])ted to ingesta, rich and nutritious food improves breeds, 

 excessive filling renders paretic, dilates; obstructions, impactions, strangu- 

 lations, hernias, invaginations, twisting, tumors, compressions, calculi, 

 lowered innervation, impaired circulation, verminous aneurism, peritonitis, 

 persistent umbilical vesicle ii: horse and ox, hernia of mucous through 

 muscular coat, ctecal dilatation, colic, rectal, with atresia ani, diseased end 

 of cord, retained faeces. Symptoms : colics after meals, abdominal and 

 rectal exploration, oofter than impaction. Treatment : empty mechanically 

 or by laxatives, demulcents, kneading, stimulants, nux vomica, ergot, ba- 

 rium chloride, eserine, rich concentrated food, electricity, enemata, 

 laxatives. 



It is a physiological law that the intestine developes in ratio with 

 the demands made tipon it, provided these demands are not too sud- 

 den and extreme. Thus the domestic pig and rabbit have intes- 

 tines at once longer and more capacious than those of the wild 

 varieties. The same is true of cattle and even of horses, heavy, rich 

 feeding, generation after generation, increases the capacity' to 

 take in and utilize more, and to attain to a larger size and earlier 

 maturity. In such a case the walls of the intestinal canal retain 

 their primary thickness and .strength and the whole change is in 

 the direction of physiological improvement for economical ends. 



When, however, the retention or habitual acctimulation of food 

 in the alimentary canal exceeds the self-adapting powers of its 

 walls a true pathological dilatation takes place, and attenuation or 

 thickening and paresis or actual paralj^sis of the walls ensues. 



Whatever interferes with the normal active movement of the 

 ingesta predi.sposes to this. Thus partial obstructions of all 

 kinds, strictures, impactions, strangtilations, hernias, invagina- 

 tions, twisting, tumors, compressions, calculi, contribute to the 

 overfilling of the bowel in front of them and to its more or less 

 .speed}' dilatation. Whatever weakens the muscular walls of the 

 bowels or the nerves presiding over these has a similar effect. 

 Thus pressure on the .solar plexus or its branches from any cause, 

 or degeneration of the .same, a tardy and imperfect circulation re- 

 sulting from verminous aneurism and thrombosis, and a circum- 

 scribed' peritonitis extending from the serous to the mu.scular 

 coat of the bowel act in this way. 



340 



