326 DISEASES or the intestines. 



Here is a case for reflection — a case showing that, 

 even in pure spasm, under certain conditions, dose the 

 suffering animal with what we may, little benefit can be 

 expected to result. I do not believe that all the medicine 

 in Apothecaries' Hall would have caused relaxation of this 

 horse's cramped intestines. What then would ? — I cannot 

 say. I can only repeat, do not exclusively rely upon inter- 

 nal antispasmodics ; but, from the moment they appear to 

 fail, have recourse, at once, to such remedies as will be sure 

 to make such an enervating impression upon the system as 

 will tend to diminish the force of muscular contraction. If 

 requisite, bleed until the patient actually falls prostrate from 

 loss of blood ; and as soon as he has recovered the effects of 

 that evacuation, exhibit tobacco-enema, potent enough and 

 copious enough to make him reel ; and dash buckets of the 

 coldest water that can be procured, with as much force as 

 can be used, against his belly. These are the remedies, in 

 my opinion, most likely to succeed in such case : if they do 

 not, recourse may be had to mercury, for the exhibition of 

 which directions will be given under ^'^ enteritis ;'' a disease 

 which the colic by this time has very likely run into. 



TYMPANITIC COLIC. 



Flatulent or wind colic — not so frequent in its occur- 

 rence as the spasmodic — has already, in one of its forms, 

 viz., that of tympanitic stomach, come under consideration; 

 and, while treating of that, the present one has necessarily 

 had notice taken of it — the two being essentially the same 

 disease. The symptoms likewise they occasion, so much 

 resemble those of spasmodic colic, or "gripes,'' properly so 

 called, that, were it not for the marked remissions attendant 

 on the one, and the distension of belly which characterises 

 the other, we should find it impossible to diagnosticate be- 

 tween them. The patient's abdomen is visibly blown out — 

 inflated all round the inferior and lateral parts, which are 

 distended like a drum ; the condition, in fact, we every 

 now and then observe in inveterate crib-biters. 



