MEDICINAL TREATMENT OF "COLICS" 123 



Physostigmine is slower of action than arecoline, 

 usually requiring one hour to produce catharsis, 

 though occasionally acting in one-half hour. It usual- 

 ly causes some griping but not as severe as that pro- 

 duced by arecoline; quite often it not only fails to 

 gripe but allays the pain in 15 to 20 minutes as though 

 it were some powerful anodyne, yet acting as a 

 cathartic. 



While physostigmine is slower than arecoline, it is very 

 much more thorough, usually causing copious defeca- 

 tion seven to a dozen times during the first hour of 

 its action and five or six defecations during the second 

 hour, by which time any griping it may have caused 

 will have ceased, although catharsis continues for 

 from two to four hours longer; resulting in as com- 

 plete an unloading of the intestine as can be secured 

 from a full purgative dose of aloes. 



Unlike arecoline, which is emphatically contraindiced, 

 physostigmine may be given in gastric flatulence, how- 

 ever, neither of these agents should ever be given to 

 a horse suffering from '^heaves" if it can be avoided, 

 though if imperative it may be administered to such 

 patients by breaking up the regular dose into three 

 or four doses, given fifteen to twenty minutes apart. 

 Should this so aggravate the heaves as to make death 

 from dyspnoea imminent, its effects on the bronchi 

 can be quickly checked by the administration hypoder- 

 matically of two drams of fluid extract of stramonium 

 diluted with one ounce of water, or by one-fourth to 

 one-half grain atropine sulphate, I prefer the stramo- 



