COLIC. 125 



The duration of the complaint is various. It sometimes 

 destroys in a few days, while some cases linger two or even 

 three weeks ; but eventually five out of every six attacked 

 with it, die. On dissection, only slig-ht marks of inflamma- 

 tion usually appear, and now and then intussusception is met 

 with; but in all, constringed and lessened parts of the bowels 

 are met with, while other portions again seem larger than 

 natural, and are flabby and unnaturally relaxed, as though they 

 had lost all their tone by the disease. The most attentive 

 dissection of the head, in these cases, has never detected any 

 morbid appearances there, except, in one or two instances, a 

 slight increase of vascularity. The affection of it, therefore, 

 during the progress of the complaint, must be considered as 

 purely symptomatic, and as not at all referrible to any specific 

 affection of thesensorium itself; and, although the head feels 

 hot during the disease, the eyes are flushed, and great 

 pain appears in it, from the pressure that is always made by 

 the animal against the hand, when it is held to it ; and the 

 sense of pleasure that is manifested when the forehead is 

 rubbed ; yet direct medical applications to the head, as fomen- 

 tations, blisters, and leeches, have always failed to give any re- 

 lief; while the remedies that have succeeded have been such 

 as were applied immediately to the bowels. 



The treatment I have found most successful consisted in 

 early and active evacuations, combined with repeated warm 

 bathing, and camphorated embrocations to the bowels. 

 Strong anodyne clysters should be frequently administered; 

 while large doses of aether, laudanum, and camphor, as pre- 

 scribed under Spasm, are the proper internal remedies. In 

 one instance strong shocks of electricity did good, and, in an- 

 other, repeated affusions of cold water relieved ; but in some 

 others this latter method seemed to aggravate the symptoms. A 

 complaint somewhat similar occurs in puppies also, but is then 

 not attended with stupor, or the disposition to turn round. 

 In a very few cases I thought I could trace the affection to 

 the action of lead, but, in others, there were no reasonable 

 grounds for referring it to any such origin. 



