SUBACUTE OBSTRUCTION OF THE SINGLE COLON 139 



principally on the muscles of the lumbar region, has a 

 peculiar depressive action -on the urinary apparatus and 

 the last portions of the bowels — a depressive action that 

 effectually tends to a torpid and stationary condition of 

 the bowel contents. 



We are not to be greatly surprised, then, that the 

 effects of a long day's heavy carting are likely, from a 

 constipating point, to settle themselves in the small 

 colon or rectum. 



Apart from this temporary derangement of the nervous 

 system, the practitioner will occasionally — very occasion- 

 ally — meet with cases of total paralysis of the rectal walls, 

 which, until noticed and correctly treated, will again lead 

 to subacute obstruction. 



Symptoms. — All the usual symptoms of colic will be 

 found in evidence here. There is the usual getting up 

 and down, the anxious looks round to the flank, the 

 patchy perspirations, and the common changes in the 

 temperature and respirations. The pulse, almost from 

 the very commencement of the case, is weak, or, rather, 

 undecided, in character, at one moment filling the artery 

 to a comfortable firmness, at another dwindling down to 

 an indistinctness nearing the imperceptible. This may 

 all occur within a few seconds and during one observa- 

 tion, and its number of beats will vary from 70 to 80 or 

 90 per minute. 



Com.pared with the other two forms of obstructive 

 colic, there is not that period of total ease so frequently 

 occurring between the paroxysms of pain. In obstruc- 

 tion of the double colon, for instance, we commonly 

 have periods of ease in which the pulse drops to a 

 normal condition, both regarding its tone and number 

 of beats. 



In obstructions of the single colon that seldom or 



