26 THE COMMON COLICS OF THE HORSE 



standing this provision of nature to avoid gastric 

 impaction, it is easy to understand that a quick or 

 greedy feeder may so bolt his food as to bring about one 

 of two conditions : either impaction of the stomach with 

 food insufficiently acted upon by the salivary fluids, or 

 the pouring out into the intestine of a large amount of 

 improperly digested material from the stomach. The 

 mere fact of its being imperfectly digested in the stomach 

 leads to other troubles in the intestines. The material 

 there is unable to become properly assimilated, and the 

 result is either a troublesome diarrhoea or, what is more 

 frequent, a condition of stasis or obstinate impaction. 



In addition to this, we may carefully consider the 

 tremendous volume of the large intestines, their thin and 

 delicate walls as compared with the enormous amount of 

 bulky material they are called upon to deal with, and, 

 finally, their great length. This done, we shall not be 

 much astonished at a fairly frequent occurrence of gastric 

 and intestinal disorders in the horse. 



Again, notice what a careful dissection of the stomach 

 reveals (page 9). It is an anatomical fact that its very 

 build is a distinct bar to the act of vomition. Con- 

 sequently, no matter how sick the animal may feel, no 

 matter the amount or irritancy of any deleterious matter 

 he may have swallowed, there it must remain, or travel 

 the whole length of the sensitive and absorbent surfaces 

 of the intestines before gaining exit from the body. The 

 anatomical facts that lead to that statement are as 

 follows : 



1. The small size of the stomach and its want of 

 contact with the abdominal walls. This is a decided 

 hindrance to its effectual compression. 



2. The narrowness of the oesophageal opening ; 

 the thickened and contracted arrangement of the fibres of 



