344 DISEASES OF THE INTESTINES. 



ingesta, to regard this as tlie correct view; and what tends 

 in measure to confirm it, is the deprivation or shortness of 

 supply of water many liighly-conditioned and highly-fed 

 horses are doomed to undergo — a practice originating in 

 false notions about giving but a certain or regular quantity 

 of water at night-feeding, a time when the supply of drink 

 to every description of horse ought to be unrestricted. 



Constipation, truly or pathologically so-called, may 

 be said to arise from causes which call for the interference 

 of medical aid for their removal. Inveterate costiveness 

 may at times become so prolonged as to produce a state 

 of constipation (as it is sometimes called obstipation) arising 

 either in accumulated quantities of retained faeces, owing, 

 perhaps, from some torpidity of function in the bowels, more 

 probably of the larger than the smaller guts, and in parti- 

 cular of the colon, which is the common bed of lodgment 

 of such accumulations. Collections of dung detained for 

 any unusual period in capacious chambers like the colon, 

 become dry and hard, and ultimately caked and matted 

 together by the secretions so as in the end to form what 

 are called dung-balls : occasioning obstruction, which, unre- 

 lieved, grows dangerous in the extreme. Should attention 

 not be attracted to the horse, owing to the constipated state 

 of his bowels, after a time inflammation will be liable to 

 seize the distended bowel, which speedily hurries on even 

 to sphacelation, or to a state of ulceration, with mortifica- 

 tion, giving rise at first to symptoms of colic, though, subse- 

 quently, to those of deceptive ease and quiet, notwithstanding 

 the case is at this very time hastening to its end. 



It is possible, such lengthened constipation may, with 

 other circumstances, lead to some suspicion or demonstra- 

 tion of the plugged and loaded bowel. I remember hearing 

 the late Mr.King,V.S., Stanmore, state, that, on one occasion, 

 being called in to a case of this description, and feeling as- 

 sured that the cause was an obstructed colon, he, as a dernier 

 resource, made an opening with a scalpel into the flank, 

 introduced his hand, and broke down the mass of obstruc- 

 tion, which Avas followed by copious emission of faeces. The 



