214 THE OX AND THE DAIRY. 



tines take place, and the animal be thus lost from want of 

 common prudence. 



It will be advisable now to give an aloetic purgative, 

 assisted by injections. This may consist of Barbadoes aloes 

 (six drachms), common salt (six ounces), ginger (three drachms), 

 and tincture of opium (two or three fluid drachms), with a 

 quart of water. Accumulations of im-bruised oats will often 

 bring on violent colic, not unlikely to end in inflammation. 



Spasmodic colic is distinguished from the former by the 

 absence of any great tumefaction and tension of the abdo- 

 men ; it does not so much arise from the presence of a large 

 quantity of gas in the bowels, as from acrid food and other 

 irritating substances. The agony is accompanied by evident 

 spasms, which have their intermissions and again return ; 

 but little gas is expelled from the alimentary canal ; the 

 animal moans, paws the ground, strikes at its side with hoof 

 and horn, and, in its excruciating pain, sometimes even 

 lunges at its attendant. This kind of colic, if it continues, 

 is apt to run into inflammation ; and it is a point which 

 must be borne in mind. The first thing to relieve the pain 

 and spasm will be a dose of laudanum (one fluid ounce) with 

 sulphuric ether (half an ounce), in thin warm gruel ; should 

 it appear, from the continuance of the pain, that any inflam- 

 mation has taken place, blood must be immediately abstracted, 

 and, whether or not this be done, aloetic purgatives must be 

 administered, assisted by injections. 



Great attention must be paid, on the recovery of the 

 animal, to its diet, as the least irritating cause is apt to bring 

 back all the bad symptoms. 



Spasmodic colic, if it continue, is known occasionally to 

 produce an entanglement of the bowels ; their wreathing 

 peristaltic action is irregular : they infold each other in their 

 spasmodic disturbance, and sometimes become knotted into 

 loops and intricate folds, among which a portion of the in- 

 testine becomes tightly embraced, strangulation of the bowel 

 being thus effected. Inflammation now comes on, and 

 death soon supervenes : there is no remedy. This kind of 

 strangulation or knot is mostly caused, when it occurs, by 

 brutal and improper treatment : the animal in its agony is 

 relentlessly driven about, perhaps by a dog, the owner 

 ignorantly supposing that such violent exercise is serviceable ; 

 the hurried irregularity of the peristaltic action is thereby 

 increased, the spasmodic constriction of the muscular fibres 



