CALCULI, Oli STONES, IN THE INTESTINES. 3J9 



The only other purgative on -vvhicli dependence can be placed is the 

 CKOTON. Tlie farina or meal of the n.it is generally used ; but from its 

 acrimony it should be given in the form of ball, with linseed meal. The 

 dose varies from a scruple to half a drachm. It acts more speedily than 

 the aloes, and without the nausea which they produce ; but it causes 

 more watery stools and, consequently, more debility. 



LiNSEED-oiL is an uncertain but safe purgative, in doses from a pound to a 

 pound and a half. Olive-OIL is more uncertain, but safe ; but CASTOR-OIL, 

 that mild aperient in the human being, is both uncertain and unsafe. 

 Epsom-salts are inefficacious, except in the immense dose of a pound and a 

 half, and then they are not always safe. 



CALCULI, OR STONES, IN THE INTESTINES. 



These are a cause of inflammation in the bowels of the horse, and more 

 frequently of colic. They are generally found in the caecum or colon, 

 varying considerably in shape according to the nucleus round which the 

 sabulous or other earthy matter collects, or the form of the cell in 

 which they have been lodged. They differ in weight, from an ounce to 

 between thirty and forty pounds, and in size vary from a small marble to 

 a man's head. When small, they are occasionally found in considerable 

 numbers, but when of the larger size, there is rarely more than one. 

 From the horizontal position of the carcase of the horse, the calculus, when 

 it begins to form, does not gravitate as in the human being, and therefore 

 calculous concretions remain and accumulate until their veiy size prevents 

 their expulsion, and a fatal ii-ritation is too frequently produced by their 

 motion and weight. They are oftenest found in heavy draught, and 

 in millers' horses. In some of these horses they have the appearance of 

 grit-stone or crystallised gneiss. It is pi'obable that they partly consist 

 of those very minerals, combined with the bran which is continually float- 

 ing about. An analysis of the calculi favours this supposition. They 

 are a soiu'ce of continual irritation wherever they are placed, and are a 

 fruitful cause of colic. Spasms of the most fearful kind have been clearly 

 traced to them. 



Professor Morton, of the Royal Veterinary College, — in his valuable 

 Essay on Calculous Concretions, — gives an interesting account of these 

 substances in the intestinal canal of the horse. Intestinal calculi are 

 composed of the ^ihosphates of lime, magnesia, and ammonia, combined 

 Avith animal matter ; the phosphates are deposited from the food, when 

 digestion is not sufficiently complete for them to be completely dissolved 

 alid carried into the circulation. Little advance has been or can be made 

 to procure their expulsion, or even to determine their existence ; and even 

 Avhen they have passed into the rectum, although some have been expelled, 

 others have been so firmly impacted as to resist all mechanical means of 

 withdrawal, and a few have broken their way through the parietes of tlie 

 rectum, and lodged in the abdominal cavity. Mr. Percivall, in his ' Ele- 

 mentary Lectui-es on the Veterinary Art,' has recorded several fearful 

 cases of this. 



Other concretions are described under the head of oaf-ZmtV caZc^Z;". Their 

 surface is tuberculated and their forms irregiTlar. They are usually with- 

 out any distinct nuclei, and are principally composed of the hairy material 

 which exists on the glume of the oat. They are moderate in size, brown 

 in colour, soft, semi-elastic, and flesh-like in feel ; this feeling depends on 

 the principal ingredients, a number of minute hairs which invest the oat, 

 combined with a portion of earthy matter, and inspissated mucus. The 

 professor very properly adds, and it is a circumstance which deserves 



