THEIR PATHOLOGY, DIAGNOSIS, AND TREATMENT. 39 



medicine has to be resorted to, the best thing is chalk with opium and 

 catechu. The following may be given in severe and obstinate cases : 



Drench for Diarrhoea.— Prepared chalk, 2oz. ; extract of catechu. Idr. ; 

 powdered gum acacia, l^oz. ; laudanum, loz. ; aromatic spirit of ammonia, 

 foz. ; water sufficient to make one and a half pints to be given as a drench 

 every six hours. 



Dysentery.— This is a disease very, uncommon in the horse ; ib is 

 marked by dark coloured, very offensive discharges, consisting of hard 

 lumps of faeces covered with mucous, mixed with fluid of a purulent nature, 

 sometimes tinged with blood. It was formerly, and still is in some districts, 

 as are also bad cases of simple diarrhoea, called "molten grease," from a 

 belief that it was the fat of the body dissolved and discharged by the 

 bowels. Bartlett, a writer on horse diseases, thus speaks of it : " By 

 molten grease i3 meant a fatty or oily discharge with the dung, and it 

 arises from a collicjuaticn or melting down of the fat of a horse's body by 

 violent exercise in very hot weather." I need scarcely say that this un- 

 tenable idea has long since been banished to the dark corners of the land ; 

 but incredible as it may appear, I have heard the absurdity stoutly upheld 

 by men who were entrusted with the treatment of thousands of pounds' 

 worth of valuable stock— entrusted, too, by men of intelligence and shrewd- 

 ne3S in most matters, but who persist in making a mystery of medicine 

 and believing in the empyric rather than the educated veterinarian. Tho 

 causes of dysentery are chiefly bad food, grazing on the poor washy herbage 

 of low marshy ground, and neglected cases of diarrhoea. The greater 

 attention that is now paid to the proper feeding and general sanitary 

 condition of horses, helped by the advance in their medical treatment 

 — although this latter has been comparatively slight, thanks to the obstinacy 

 of horse owners— cases of dysentery, as before said, are now rare. When 

 they do occur, the general directions for diarrhoea should be followed ; 

 and it will be a wise policy to at once consult a qualified veterinary surgeon, 

 who, even if he fails to save the horse, will, by pointing out errors in 

 early treatment and probable causes giving rise to the disease, have 

 given good exchange for hi3 fee, as will be fully proved if his advice be 

 taken for future guidance. Neither diarrhoea nor dysentery are infec- 

 tious, although the former may exist as an epidemie. 



E. 



Enteritis — Inflammation of the Bowels.— This is a very dan- 

 gerous disease, and all the more so as it is often confounded with that 

 known by the various names of colic, fret, gripes, and belly-ache, &c., and 

 which has been already treated under colic where the most clearly 

 distinguishing features have been given— both diseases arc marked by 



