256 THE DOG IN DISEASE. 



exercise and dieting if possible. It must not be forgotten 

 that bones, when small and capable of being chewed up, 

 are very constipating. While line flour bread tends to 

 costiveness, this article, made from unbolted wheat or 

 Graham flour, is not, and constitutes a most suitable food 

 for dogs. Spratts' foods rarely constipate, but at first 

 may relax too much. As a rule, they soon agree well, 

 and as patent foods leave nothing to be desired. 



Colic. — When the contractions of the intestine are long 

 continued at one spot, pain of a very depressing though 

 more or less spasmodic character results. It is not in 

 itself an inflammatory affection, though colicky pains 

 {formina) precede or accompany several intestinal diseases. 



Causation and Symptoms. — Colic may be caused by 

 unsuitable food, damp and wet, worms, lead when intro- 

 duced to a poisonous degree into the body, the passage of 

 gall-stones, renal (kidney) calculi, etc. Uneasiness, moan- 

 ing, or sharp cries, arched back, difiiculty in walking at 

 times, as if paralyzed, a piteous expression, tense abdo- 

 men, etc. 



Treatment. — Give at once a good dose of castor oil 

 with twenty drops of laudanum, and apply to the abdomen 

 a turpentine stupe for twenty minutes ; this may then be 

 removed and replaced by a modification of the chest- 

 jacket. If the bowels do not soon move, give an enema 

 containing an opiate, and, if the pain still persists, twenty 

 drops of chlorodyne or a drachm of spirits of chloroform, 

 with a like quantity of aromatic spirits of ammonia, prop- 

 erly diluted with water, will likely afford relief. 



Of itself, colic is not a fatal disease ; and those maladies 

 which are really inflammatory— as enteritis, though often 



