RUPTURES OF THE STOMACH AND BOWELS. 16D 



hours, and other measures employed to ward off inflammation. 

 Kehef is seldom obtained in these cases in less than twelve hours. 



As the pain ceases, the horse usually evinces a disposition for 

 food ; but the only kind that should be allowed, for the fii'st 

 twelve or twenty-four hours, is bran mashes, so as to insure a 

 relaxed state of the bowels, and preclude the irritation that 

 would be likely to follow the giving hard dry food in the sore 

 state in which the bowels are after an attack of colic. Plenty 

 of warm water should be given the animal to drink, both during 

 the attack and afterwards- 



When a horse dies from the colic, which is rarely the case 

 when judicious treatment is employed, we generally find the 

 appearance of intense inflammation, but confined to some par- 

 ticular portion of the intestines, and not generally diffiised. At 

 this spot there is usually an eff"usion of blood from the surface 

 of the mucous coat, as well as between the coats ; and often 

 &pots of ecchymosis in different places.* Sometimes there is 

 considerable stricture of the intestines, so as to obstruct the 

 passage. The disease is generally found confined to the small 

 intestines. — Ed.] 



Intimately connected with the colic are the following diseases. 



\_Rujiturcs of the Stomach and Bowels 



Are sometimes the effect of colic, or more frequently the cause 

 that induces its symptoms. A rupture of the coats of the 

 stomach is more frequent than that of the intestines. It is pro- 

 duced by overloading this viscus with indigestible food, such as 

 dry bran, or the hulls of wheat and barley. In two cases that 

 occurred to myself not long since one was a miller's horse, and 

 had fed ravenously in the morning from dry bran, was taken ill 

 on a joui'ney with the fret, as was supposed, came home, and 

 died an hour or two afterwards. When I saw him he was 

 sitting on his haunches, and vomiting profusely from his nostrils 

 a fluid, the sour smell of which assured me at once that it pro- 

 ceeded from the stomach. There was found a rupture extending 

 throughout a great poi'tion of the large curvature of the stomach, 

 and through which an immense quantity of imdigested bran had 

 escaped into the cavity of the abdomen. In tiie stomach of the 

 other horse, there was found a rupture, though not so extensive 



* We rarely have an opportunity of witnessing the morbid eflfect of colic, 

 until inflammation has existed sufficiently to destroy life ; but in a case that 

 came under my attention some time since, a horse was attacked with colic 

 and recovered, but died in a day or two of another disease. There was no 

 inflammation of the bowels, but a vast number of small spots of ecchymosis 

 between the muscular and peritoneal coats. 



