372 Veterinary Medicine. 



The condition has been especially noticed in fractures or severe 

 sprains of the loins causing pressure on the spinal cord. In 

 some cases injury to the nerves supplied by this part of the cord, 

 leads to an extension of inflammation to the nerve centres, thus 

 paralysis of the rectum has followed on fracture of the ischium, 

 dislocation of the sacro- iliac joint, or even of the first bone of the 

 coccyx. Again, congestions and effusions on the terminal part 

 of the cord, which occur in certain cases of hgemoglobinuria and 

 in old hard worked horses is a cause of these local paralyses. 

 Advanced gestation appears at times to produce the disease 

 through pressure on the nerves, though it has also been noticed 

 in non-breeding animals, and is doubtless traceable to sclerosis or 

 other degenerations of the cord. It sometimes follows vaginal 

 ovariotomy. 



Sometimes the condition is traceable to local lesions as over 

 distension of the rectum in horse or dog or in rectitis, but the re- 

 sult in such cases is usually partial, a paresis rather than a 

 paralysis. The same may at times result from the growth 

 of the neoplasms, and from the debility of old age. In other 

 cases thrombosis of the aorta or internal iliac artery, implicates 

 the hsemorrhoidal vessels and paresis occurs as a result of the 

 limited blood supply. 



It may further result from the action of toxins and ptomaines 

 on the spinal cord as when it supervenes in the course of debili- 

 tating fevers. This usually shows itself first as paresis of the 

 sphincter ani, and later implicates the rectum as well. 



Symptoms. In the slighter forms defecation is retarded, the 

 faeces accumulate and overdistend the organ, adding to the 

 paresis ; they escape only under violent straining and apparently 

 by the peristaltic contractions of the anterior portion of the 

 rectum ; the ejected matters are discharged usually in the form of 

 a cylindroid mass; and they are dry, and firmly compressed. In 

 .some cases the irritation caused by the impaction leads to a free 

 secretion, which escapes through tlie widely open anus and runs 

 down the thighs, leading to excoriation of the skin. 



In the more severe cases the accumulation is more complete, 

 the expul.sion still more difficult, and as the tail is often implicated, 

 it lies flacid between the thighs, and is smeared with the dis- 

 charges. The peristalsis in front and the forcible compression by 



