54 



THE COMMON COLICS OF THE HORSE 



Mr. Alfred Broad, too, relates a case of acute gastric 

 tympany followed by recovery .^ It is noticed also by 

 Messrs. E. Wallis Hoare, Cork^; John Young, Edin- 

 burghS; and R. Shaw Craig."* These writers all 

 distinctly recognise this condition of distended stomach. 



Causes. — As is the rule with cases of equine colic, we 

 may conlidently look to dietetic errors as the main factor 

 in the causation of this complaint. Those in country 

 practice may expect the bulk of their cases from the hasty 

 bolting of a quantity of young and succulent herbage, 

 particularly clover, growing corn, lucerne, or vetches. 

 Other cases will occasionally crop up where the animals 

 have been allowed a large quantity of mixed ground 

 corn. These attacks are frequent, too, in localities 

 where animals are turned, fresh from a winter's stabling, 

 on to a field of young spring grass, more especially if the 

 pasture be marshy. 



In some districts it is customary, immediately after 

 harvest, to put by a number of unthreshed oat-sheaves, 

 which are cut up and used as chaft', with or without the 

 admixture of other seasoned hay. This, again, is a cause 

 of numbers of cases of tympanitic stomach. The same 

 may be said of newly- threshed oats. 



Where such palpable causes as these are absent the 

 practitioner must look with suspicion upon food that has 

 been badly harvested — mow-burnt hay and mouldy corn. 

 Personally, I am not an advocate for the use of boiled 

 foods, and look upon them as a frequent cause of colic 

 troubles. Such foods, unless the men are well superin- 

 tended and the supplies kept fresh, will turn sour and 

 inevitably give rise to fermentation when eaten. For the 



1 Veterinary Journal, vol. ii., p. 17^. 



•^ Veterinarian, vol. Ixix., p. 794. ^ Ibid., vol. xlviii., p. 593. 



* Veterinary Record, vol. ix., p. 214. 



