CONSTIPATION. 313 



Fromage de Feugre, of making an- opening into the flank 

 sufficiently large to admit the hand, and, with it introduced, 

 endeavour to rectify whatever may be found amiss. I much 

 doubt whether a horse would survive such an operation. Even 

 supposing there was a chance of the animal's survival, however, 

 such cases as these are ever enveloped in so much obscurity 

 and doubt, that I do not think the operator with his groping 

 hand at all likely to discover their true nature, even should 

 he feel out the seat of the mischief. 



CONSTIPATION. 



Nosologists have varied in opinion in their views of this 

 pathological condition, some regarding it as a state or genus 

 divisible into kinds or degrees, others looking upon it as 

 but one distinct order of disease. It may either proceed 

 from habit, or be the result of some other disease proving a 

 cause of obstruction. Some writers have, and with reason, 

 made a diflPerence between costiveness and constipation : 

 the former being but a temporary or slight obstruction, and 

 one originating in habit, or in faulty digestion of some kind ; 

 while the latter is apt to be enduring and permanent, and 

 may proceed from causes of difficult or impossible removal. 



Costiveness is a condition of bowels not uncommon to 

 horses standing constantly in stables, highly fed, and in 

 high condition, and especially when their provender consists 

 in a great measure of grain and pulse, such as old beans, 

 while their work or exercise is incommensurate with the 

 heating properties of such high feeding. Increase of walk- 

 ing exercise given to horses so disposed, or the substitution 

 of mashes for their night's feed, twice or thrice a week, will 

 serve often to counteract the febrile disposition induced by 

 such keep; though, should it at any time amount to anything 

 approaching to constipation, cathartic medicine ought to be 

 employed. Dr. Cullen was of opinion that costiveness, in the 

 greater number of cases, arose principally in consequence of 

 the absorption of the more fluid parts of the alimentary and 

 fiecal matters ; and there seems reason, .when one comes to 

 consider the quantity of fluid ordinarily taken in with the 



