DIGESTIOX 237 



tion to detect displacements of the large intestine.* The size, 

 weight, and peculiar disposition of the double colon should have 

 secured it immunity from any form of displacement ; looked at in 

 the abdomen, it appears impossible for any force short of some mys- 

 terious power to be able to influence the position of the bowels, yet 

 we know they are capable of being twisted as easily as if they were 

 made of cotton. We know also that one portion may be thrust into 

 another, in just the same way as a telescope collapses, and that a 

 voluminous bowel like the caecum may become completely inverted, 

 and found within the colon, though to get there it has to pass through 

 an opening only an inch or two wide. So remarkable, indeed, are 

 these lesions that they cannot always be imitated after death, and, 

 as mentioned above, it is impossible to untie many complicated 

 knots in the small bowels, even when the organs have been removed 

 from the abdomen. 



The actual mechanism which brings about twists of the large and 

 small intestines is disordered muscular action ; the factor responsible 

 for telescoping intestines is disordered muscular action, and dis- 

 ordered muscular action is the result of disordered nervous action. 

 For telescoping to occur, one portion of bowel must first contract 

 until it becomes but a mere shadow of its former self ; the contracted 

 part must then be drawn within the dilated. A different cause is at 

 work to produce a twist of the small intestine ; this, as we previously 

 indicated (p. 212) is tympany of the bowel, while in the case of the 

 large intestines the muscular action must be capable of causing the 

 bowel to perform a revolution more or less complete, and in this way 

 reversing its position. We cannot attempt to indicate the exact 

 disordered action which occurs ; this question would require to be 

 worked out on the living subject. The colon and caecum are most 

 liberally supplied with bands (Figs. 73, 74, 76, 77, and 79), and it 

 does not appear to us to be beyond the bounds of reasonable prob- 

 ability that these play a most important part in the production of 

 displacements of the large intestines. The cause of the disordered 

 nervous action which leads to this may, from its physiological in- 

 terest, be briefly dealt with. Apart from such obvious explanations 

 as errors in feeding (see, in this connection, pp. 180, 181, 192, 193, 257), 

 the most common cause of derangement of the muscular action of the 

 digestive canal is work. It is this which accounts for the majority 

 of colic cases occurring towards the end of the day, the frequency 

 with which the seizure occurs at or shortly after work, especially that 

 of an exhausting nature, and the practical absence of colic among 

 non-working horses. We have even known a horse in a cavalry 

 charge rupture the ileum as completely as if the parts had been 

 torn asunder by hand ; and this, it will be remembered, is the 

 thickest and stoutest portion of the small intestine, and the least 

 likely to suffer laceration. The connection between such a lesion 

 and an exhausting gallop is at present not very apparent, but the 

 fact is undoubted. 



The whole subject is of profound practical interest, and more has 

 been said on the matter than commonly falls to physiology to deal 

 with, but the basis of exact clinical knowledge is sound anatomy and 



* From the point of view of equine pathology, one of the most valuable 

 contributions made to veterinary literature by the late Professor Walley 

 was his account of displacements of the colon in the horse (Veterinary 

 Journal, vol. ix.). It was the first time in this country that the possibility 

 of these immense bowels being twisted and displaced was ever described. 



