190 THE COMMON COLICS OF THE HORSE 



After all is said, Percivall's summing up remains as 

 good now as on the day on which it w^as written. ' The 

 surest diagnosis between colic and enteritis,' he says, ' is 

 to be found in the history of the case — in particular, in 

 the inannev of the attack, in the intermissions, in the state 

 of the pulse, and in the progress of the case.' 



Prognosis. — Once certainly diagnosed, enteritis offers 

 but little hope of recovery. It is so commonly fatal as 

 to warrant an unfavourable opinion being expressed in 

 every case. 



In ordinary cases of colic, as, for example, impaction, 

 irritation by calculi, diarrhoea, etc., there is no doubt that 

 we often get a condition that properly comes under the 

 term we are now in all probability misusing. . . . We 

 get a limited enteritis. . . . The occasional slight rise 

 of temperature in these cases is sufficient to point that 

 out. Such of these cases as yield to remedial measures 

 may be rightly classed as recoveries from enteritis. The 

 name ' enteritis,' as signifying the disease I have been 

 describing, has become such a w^ell-known part and 

 parcel of veterinary nomenclature that I have not dared 

 to head this chapter by any other term. Had not such 

 been the case, I should have suggested for this disorder 

 some such appellation as ' intestinal septic infection,' 

 ' intestinal septicaemia ' — in short, any other suitable 

 name that would have left the word ' enteritis ' to be 

 properly applied to those conditions it more fitly 

 describes. That the disorder we have described is an 

 enteritis, or inflammatory condition of the bowels, I 

 do not attempt to deny. I simply maintain that its 

 manifestations are so peculiar to itself as to point to 

 a specific cause — that it is a disease by itself — and 

 ought, therefore, to be given such a name as would 

 definitely distinguish it from those comparatively minor 



