346 DISEASES OF THE INTESTINES. 



In regard to internal medicine, none is worthy of greater 

 reliance than doses of aloes in solution, repeated as often as 

 seems required, and can be borne. That failing, croton 

 powder, which is more effectual than the oil, may be given, 

 either in ball or floating in powder upon the aloetic 

 solution. 



Constipation being an ordinary symptom in enteritis, 

 our remedies to relieve it must be directed to the inflamma- 

 tory disease causing it, rather than to the constipative con- 

 dition itself: and between such morbid states, we ought to 

 be early in making satisfactory distinction. When dung- 

 ball, or other kind of intestinal concretion is present, filling 

 the cavity, we shall, in general, in vain use means to relieve 

 the case : it is but too surely fatal in the end to admit of 

 any hope or possibility of relief. 



INTESTINAL CONCRETIONS. 



Concretions or " stones^^ are found in the stomach as 

 well as in the intestines : of which we have recently seen 

 recorded cases, such as no longer leave room for doubt or 

 further question on the subject. Within the intestines 

 they are oftentimes discovered at the slaughter-houses, and 

 by the knackers are brought to us for sale; in which way 

 we may soon make a collection, though, probably, without 

 being able to glean the history of hardly any one of them. 

 Commonly, they are found in the large guts ; sometimes, 

 in the small : their ordinary place of lodgment appears to 

 be the colon. Mr. Karkeek reports a case in ^ The Veteri- 

 narian' for 1836, whose history he obtained from a farrier, in 

 which the " stone'' was said to have been lodged in the point 

 of the C3ecum. Mr. Goodwin mentions an instance of the 

 small intestines being obstructed by calculus. 



Number, Magnitude, and Weight. — There may exist 

 but a single stone ; there may be several : or, like pebbles, 

 calculi may and do occasionally collect in very consider- 

 able numbers. I have seen hundreds of small stones taken 



