364 DISEASES OF THE INTESTINES. 



again of ease. The early discharges consist almost entirely 

 of liquid dung : those that succeed are frequently inter- 

 mingled with mucous and gelatinous secretions from the 

 lining membrane of the bowels. The emissions also vary in 

 colour; and in some cases, though not usually, have an 

 offensive foetor. 



Increased Peristaltic Action will, by hurrying the 

 alimentary matters through the intestinal canal while yet in 

 a state of fluidity, likewise induce purgation ; and especially, 

 as I noticed before, in a body in which these matters have 

 already become reduced to copious liquidity by a large ingur- 

 gitation of water. And this is an effect more easily producible 

 on a certain kind or make of horse — a make we vulgarly 

 call washy — than on one of a different conformation. These 

 washy (watery?) horses are, in general, found to be loosely 

 made, slack in their loins, hollow-backed, high-hipped, and 

 pot-bellied ; and very commonly are of a light chestnut or 

 bright bay colour, with white legs. There seems to be a 

 want of brace or tenacity of fibre in such horses, in their 

 inward as well as in their outward parts ; which, added 

 to a peculiar nervousness and irritability they in general 

 evince, will serve in a great measure to account for their 

 liability to diarrhoea — at least from the causes just men- 

 tioned. 



A Congested or an Inflammatory State of Mucous 

 Membrane may exist in company with, or in consequence 

 of, some of the causes already particularised ; or it may arise 

 independently of them. Irritations of all kinds will natu- 

 rally tend to the production of inflammation in it; or the 

 same may be caused by wet or cold applied to the skin, by 

 suppressed perspiration, metastasis, &c. I have known a 

 horse to be attacked with diarrhoea after travelling by rail- 

 way during very cold weather, he having been known to 

 have sweated much (from agitation) during his journey, and 

 then to have been suffered to grow dry of himself. This was 

 the case with the four-year-old mare Captain Lowther bought 

 for the regiment, and sent up per railway. In fact, what- 

 ever tends to throw the current of blood upon the bowels. 



