SPASMODIC COLIC. 319 



to this disease. In such subjects^ a potation of cold water, 

 in particular when the body is at all warm, is almost certain 

 to induce spasm ; green-meat also, and physic, will be likely 

 to occasion it ; and, therefore, all these things ought to be 

 avoided : for these repeated attacks become not only exceed- 

 ing annoying, but, in the end, dangerous ; so much so, that 

 one would feel inclined to counsel an individual possessing 

 such a horse to take the first opportunity of disposing of him. 



I attended the same horse for one attack of gripes in 

 March, 1826 ; for another in April ; a third in June ; and 

 a fourth in August, all of the same year : of which last, after 

 having experienced relief for some hours, each time, at three 

 separate intervals, he died ; as, indeed, I had predicted he 

 would on the occasion of his surmounting, with much diffi- 

 culty, the third attack. In addition to the ordinary con- 

 tractions discovered in his small intestines, his stomach 

 proved tympanitic. 



The Treatment of an ordinary case of spasmodic colic 

 is, in the notion of almost every one who pretends to the 

 possession of any horse-knowledge, an affair of such sim- 

 plicity and obviousness that it is seldom deemed requisite to 

 call in professional assistance. Every farrier and groom, 

 every horse-dealer and horse-keeper, fancies himself quite as 

 competent to treat the case as the most skilful veterinarian ; 

 and, in point of fact, providing the disease be purely spas- 

 modic, his remedy is likely to prove in the first instance 

 quite as effectual as ours : it being notorious that almost all 

 kinds of strong spirits and aromatics possess antispasmodic 

 properties. The groom, being well convinced of their 

 efficacy from experience upon his own person, as naturally 

 runs for gin and pepper, or peppermint water, or some such 

 not disagreeable compound, for his horse when " griped,^^ as 

 he does for some agreeable spirituous compound for himself; 

 or he probably possesses some nostrum, which he declares 

 and believes to be superior to every other, and, as an incon- 

 trovertible proof of it, asserts, that it " never fails^^ to cure. 

 And, given at the instant, perhaps, it very seldom does ; for 

 it imports less what we give than when the remedy is ad- 



