332 DISEASES OF THE INTESTINES. 



inflammation. Certain kinds of indigestible food, calculous 

 bodies, irritating matters of any sort in fact within the 

 bowels, may cause an inflammation of them. Obstruction 

 of any of their passages — whether it be from the lodgment 

 and immoveableness of the matters they contain, or from 

 entanglement of the intestines, or intro-susception — must, 

 in the end, occasion inflammation. Over-fatigue, and 

 consequent excessive irritation of bowel, will bring it on. 

 Now and then, it will supervene upon a hard day^s work, 

 such as hunting; though this is a case in which the symp- 

 toms will be less violent, and yet often equally dangerous. 

 Cold — from exposure, with skin wetted while hot, to a 

 current of air — is commonly entered high up in the list of 

 the causes of enteritis, and perhaps with propriety ; though, 

 for my own part, I must confess I have not met with so 

 many cases from this as from other causes. 



Hernia, as in the case of unrelieved colic, must here 

 also — should the patient be a stone horse — become an 

 especial object of inquiry.^ 



The Duration of enteritis, in all the intensity I have 

 described it, cannot but be short. Destructibly violent and in- 

 suflferably painful as bowel inflammation is,neither the part nor 

 the constitution can withstand it for long : in from twelve 

 to tAventy-four hours, after it has once fairly set in, a decisive 

 change may be expected : too often that change is — and 

 but too likely is it to prove to be — dissolution. 



E/ELAPSE has sometimes occurred, after the primary attack 

 has been subdued, and the animal considered to be out of 

 danger. I have seen the disease return a few hours after 

 all had been put an end to through copious and timely blood- 

 letting, &c. ; and the second attack, in spite of all that 

 could be done from the moment it set in, prove fatal. On 

 this account, 1 recommend a second bloodletting, in cases 

 even where the first has proved successful, two, or three, or 

 four hours after apparent recovery, should the pulse appear 

 at all to warrant it. 



' For the mode in which this enquiry is to he conducted, consult the ac- 

 count of ' Inguinal Hernia.' 



