914 PRACTICE OF AGRICULTURE. Part III. 



quently,' however, the stomach becomes flabby, inert, and paralytic, and after death presents marks of 

 inflammation towards the pylorus. 



5796. The treatment. When recovery has taken place, it has occurred only when the disease has been 

 very mild, and has been assisted by stimulating the stomach into action by purgatives, at once active and 

 invigorating, as an ounce of aloes dissolved in half a pint of gin. When a horse of extreme value is at- 

 tacked, croton oil might be tried to the amount of 20 or 25 drops in two ounces of tincture of aloes. 

 Warm water in small quantities, or mixed with common salt, should be frequently passed down. Remove 

 every eatable, rake, clyster, and hand-rub ; and if the determination to the head be extreme, bleed, othei- 

 wise avoid it. 



5797. Inflammation of the bowels, enteritis, or red colic, is a very distinct disease from the gripes, gullion, 

 or fret, with which it is, however, very apt to be confounded to the destruction of many horses. The pe- 

 ritoneal inflammation of the bowels, the one here treated on, is an aflection of their outer covering. 



5798. The causes are various. It is not unfrequently brought on by a sudden translation of cold after 

 great heats, as swimming during hunting, or from the removal of a horse from grass at once into heated 

 stables, clothing and hard food ; neglected gripes, or long-continued costiveness, excessive riding, and 

 the immediate drinking of cold water, have brought it on. It begins by restlessness, loss of appetite, some 

 uneasiness ; the mouth is hot and dry, the inner membranes of the mouth, nose, and eyelids, are often 

 redder than natural. As the disease advances, the pain, before not violent, now increases so as to force 

 the horse to lie down and rise again frequently ; and when very violent, he kicks at his belly, or looks 

 round at his sides, pawing his htter very frequently. The pulse is usually small, quick, or hard ; some- 

 times it is more full and small, but always hard. Breathing is quickened, the extremities are alternately 

 hot and cold, but continue longer cold than hot ; and the animal is costive : sometimes pain may force 

 away a few hardened balls of faeces, but the principal contents are retained. Blaine has given the distin- 

 guishing features between this disease and colic, under which head we have stated them. 



5799. The treatment must be active and immediate, or a fatal termination may be expected. Begin 

 by abstracting a considerable quantity of blood ; from a large horse to the amount of seven or eight quarts ; 

 proceed to back-rake, throw up a large clyster of warm gruel. Give by the mouth, if the expense be not 

 considered an object, a pint of castor oil, mixed by means of the yolk of two eggs, with half a pint of broth 

 or gruel. If the expense be objected to, give olive oil instead, following it up in half an hour by a gruel 

 drench, in which six ounces of Epsom salts have been dissolved. A sheep-skin, immediately as it is re- 

 moved from the sheep, may be applied to the belly, which should first be well rubbed with the stronger 

 liquid blister. {Vet. Pharm. 5893.) In four hours repeat the bleeding, if a considerable improvement 

 have not taken place, and if the bowels be not unloaded, give more oil, and clyster frequently, having first 

 back-raked. Avoid exercise; first hand- rub, and afterwards wrap up the extremities to the knees. As 

 a clear passage for the dung is found, the symptoms mitigate, and the animal slowly recovers ; but he 

 must be fed at first very sparingly. 



5800. Inflammation of the inner surface of the intestines is, in some measure, different from the 

 former, which is rather an affection of their outer covering ; whereas this is usually confined to their 

 villous surface, and may be brought on by superpurgation from over-strong physic, or from mineral acids 

 being taken in, particularly mercurials, which often exert more influence on the bowels than on the 

 stomach. It differs from the former in the symptoms being generally accompanied with purging ; neither 

 is there usually so much pain or uneasiness present, nor such cold extremities ; but where from the 

 violence of the inflammation these symptoms are present, bleeding to the amount of three or four 

 quarts is a proper preliminary, but can hardly be with propriety continued. The same stimulants to the 

 outside of the belly should be used as in the last disease ; but here, clothing is recommended as well as 

 warmth in the stable, as also hand-rubbing to keep up the circulation in the extremities. Give astringent 

 drink {Vet. Pharm. .5883. No. 1. or 2.) with a pintiof boiled starch every three hours, and give the same 

 by clyster with two quarts of pot liquor, or tripe liquor, free from salt. 



5801. Dysenteric inflammation of the horse's bowels is happily not very common, but now and then 

 appears, and is then called by farriers molten grease ; they mistaking the morbid secretion from the in- 

 testines, for the fat of the body melted down and passing off thus. But dysentery is a peculiar inflam- 

 mation of the mucous surface of the intestines, not contagious as in the human, nor epidemic, nor 

 exhibiting a putrid tendency ; but is peculiarly confined to a diseased increase in the mucous secretions, 

 yet very different from simple diarrhoea, which is a mere increase in the peristaltic motion, by which 

 the common aliments are quickly passed through the intestines, and ejected in a liquid form by an in- 

 crease in their watery secretion. Whereas in the dysentery of the horse, the mucous of the intestines 

 separates from them in large quantities; and comes away with tlie dung surrounding it ; but when it does 

 not pass in this way it appears in membranous films like sodden leather, or in stringy evacuations, like 

 morsels of fat floating in water ; sometimes there is a little bloody appearance. The usual symptoms of 

 fever are always present, but not in a very high degree. 



5802. The causes are cold, over-riding, and not unfrequently acrid substances within the intestines : 

 change of food has occasioned it. 



5803. The treatment. In the first stages bleed considerably, and give as the first internal remedy six 

 ounces of castor oil, which will amend the fjecal evacuations considerably ; afterwards administer the 

 following: powdered ipecacuanha, a drachm ; powdered opium, a scruple j liquid anow-root, eight 

 ounces. Should this not check the evacuation, and should it continue as mucous as at first, again give 

 castor oil, and then follow it up by either of the drinks directed for the cure of scouring or looseness. 

 ( Vet. Pharm. 5883.) 



5804. Diarrhoea or looseness. This complaint originates in an increased peristaltic motion of the 

 intestines with an increase of their watery secretion, and is distinguished from dysentery by the purging 

 being complete from the first, and seldom occasioning much fever or disturbance in the general health, 

 unless exceedingly violent. The stools are merely solutions of the aliment, and unmixed with mem- 

 branous films as in dysentery or molten grease. It sometimes succeeds to over-strong physic ; at others 

 the food enters into new combinations, and forms a purge. Some horses have their bowels constitution- 

 ally weak, as lank-sided small carcascd ones, where the mechanical pressure hurries the contents 

 forwards. Salt mashes and sea water will purge horses violently sometimes. It is always proper to 

 encourage warmth in the skin, and to change the food The change should be generally from one more 

 moist to one less so, as beans, &c. Barley will sometimes stop looseness ; malt usually increases it. 

 Buck-wheat is often a check to habitual diarrhoea. Efficacious astringents will be found in the Vet.Pharm. 

 (5883.) Repeat either of these night and morning. Give but little water and that little warm. 



5805. Colic, flatulent, or spas?nodic, called also gripes, fret, or gullion, is an important, because a 

 frequent, disease, and because it frequently destroyseither quickly by its irritation, or by its degenerating 

 into the red or inflammatory colic, when improperly treated or long continued. It is usually very sudden 

 in its attack. 



5806. The causes of colic are not always apparent It is sometimes occasioned by intestinal stones, 

 which accumulate to a great size, remaining for years in the cells of the colon, until some accidental 

 displacement occasions an interruption to the peristaltic motion. Cold in its various forms is a parent 

 of colic ; but under the form of cold water given when a horse is hot, it is most common. In some 

 horses it is so frequent as to become a constitutional appendage. 



5807. The distinguishing marks between colic and inflammation of the bowels are gained, according to 

 Blaine, by attending to the following circumstances. In gripes the horse has violent fits of pain, but 

 they remit, and he has intervals of ease. The pain in red colic is more uniform and less violent. In 

 gripes, the pulse is, in general, natural ; in red colic it is quicker than natural, and commonly small. 



