850 CA': TLE. 



rubbed in. In very bad cases, but not until other remedies have 

 been apphed, it will be useful to bleed. Waini mashes, warm gruel, 

 and good old hay, should constitute the food of the beast for some 

 time afterwards. 



A more prevalent species of colic, is the spasmodic. It is spasm, 

 or contraction of a portion or portions of the small intestines, and 

 accompanied by more excruciating pain than the former. The ani- 

 mal is exceedingly uneasy, lowing, pawing, striking at his belly with 

 his hind legs or his horns ; continually lying down and getting up, 

 becoming very irritable, and sometimes being dangerous to handle. 

 It is distinguished from flatulent colic by the smaller quantity of gas 

 that is expelled, the comparative absence of tension or enlargement 

 of the belly, the more evident spasms relaxing for a little while, and 

 then returning with increased violence, and the freedom with which 

 the animal moves during the remissions. 



The feeding on acrid plants, or even on healthy food too great in 

 quantity or too nutritive, the commencement of feeding on grains, ex- 

 posure to cold after work, the drinking of too cold water, and espe- 

 cially after exercise, or of water impregnated with metallic salts, are 

 occasional causes. More dangferous ones are the lono- continuance of 

 purging, and also the long continuance of costiveness. The treat- 

 ment will be the same, except that as this proceeds from irritation in 

 the intestinal canal general]}', or in particular portions of it, which is 

 apt to run on to inflammation, bleeding will be earlier resorted to ; 

 and the practitioner will not suffer the first symptom of inllamma- 

 tioH to appear, without adopting the best method of subduing it. 

 After every case of colic, whether flatulent or spasmodic, the animal 

 will require some attention and nursing, for in both of them the in- 

 testines are considerably weakened and predisposed to a repetition of 

 the attack, and there are few maladies, the habit of the recurrence 

 of which is so soon formed. 



Homoeopathic treatment. — The curative means are aconitum (one 

 or two doses), and then arsenicum (three or four doses). If these 

 remedies diminish the sufferings a httle, but the constipation still 

 contmues, nux vomica is given, when the faecal evacuations are in 

 small hard lumps ; opium, when they are blackish, as if burned, and 

 when it becomes necessary to extract them from the rectum with the 

 hand ; plumbum in the most obstinate cases, where the rectum is 

 empty. We may also try carlo vegetahilis and colocynthis. Consult 

 the ariicles Diarrhoea and Distension of the Rumen by Gas, for these 

 two symptoms are sometimes associated in colic. 



STRANGULATION OF THE INTESTINES. 



Spasmodic colic, if neglected, or biddincr defiance to medical treat- 

 ment, occasionally leads to such an entanglement of different parts of 



