156 THE FARM DOCTOR. 



follow unrelieved obstruction of the bowels, especially if these 

 have been treated by powerful opiates and stimulants, or 

 dangerously irritant purgatives. To these must be added 

 excessive fatigue, heavy, hurried feeding, and drinking iced 

 water, exposure to a cold draught, chill rain, or cold sponge 

 when exhausted, a sudden change to dry grain feeding, to new 

 oats, or hay, to rank, rapidly-grown clover or grasses, or to 

 musty food. 



Symptoms. — When not supervening on indigestion or obstruc- 

 tion of the bowels its onset is sudden. The patient stamps, 

 paws, looks at its flank, moves from place to place, walks 

 crouchingly, lies down, rolls, acts in short as in spasmodic 

 colic, but there is a more careful lying down, there is no inter- 

 mission to the pain, the face continues pinched and anxious 

 even if the beast stands quiet for a few seconds, the eye remains 

 fixed and glazed, the pupil dilated, the breathing hurried and 

 catching, the pulse rapid, and becom.ing smaller and weaker, 

 the temperature unnaturally high, the surface covered with 

 sweat and often cold, and the limbs and ears deathly cold. 

 The abdomen is usually tender. As the disease advances the 

 animal may become still, but all the other signs are worse. 

 Others become reckless and dash about peeling and injuring 

 themselves and imperilling those about them. The bowels are 

 confined, and in the advanced stages the pellets passed may 

 be stained with blood. Death may ensue in from three to 

 twenty-four hours after the onset. 



Treatment. — If seen at the outset give a mild laxative (olive- 

 oil) with an anodyne (hyoscyamus). Bleeding from the jugular 

 vein may give prompt relief if the pulse is still full and strong. 

 But neither of these can be ventured upon except at the very 

 outset, and therefore in the great majority of cases are to be 

 avoided. Apply hot fomentations to the belly by a blanket 

 wrung out of water nearly boiling, rub the limbs with ammonia, 

 mustard, or turpentine, and give injections of warm water 



