CHAP. I.] SIMILAR TO COLIC, &C. 265 



affecting fat animals, the reader is referred to the 

 next head of information. 



THE COLIC, GRIPES, or FRET. 



This disorder has been frequently referred to, 

 under the preceding head of Inflammation of the 

 Intestines, to which it bears great affinity in some 

 of its points — as already stated ; the cause of both 

 being nearly the same in most cases, and long con- 

 tinued colic always ending in inflammation, if not 

 effectually checked in time. Much of the difference 

 that exists between the two kinds of attack depends 

 on the previous state of the animal attacked : if it 

 be a high-fed and hard-worked animal, whose di- 

 gestive organs receive a sudden check, he contracts 

 inflammation in the first instance ; but one that is 

 lower kept, and therefore not so irritable in any 

 part of its system, is soon troubled with spasmodic 

 affection of the intestines, which receives the name 

 of gripes, or fret in different counties, as it does 

 that of flatulent colic in most of the books that 

 treat of animal medicine. Colic, however, is the 

 general name given by most stable people to every 

 pain of the inside (of man and horse) that occasions 

 writhing, or other demonstrations of that pain, 

 which few can discriminate in their own persons, 

 much less in their horses. To this undiscrimi- 

 nating manner of naming disorders that require 

 such very different treatment at our hands, is to be 

 attributed the loss of many lives annually. In 

 this anomalous manner of treating those disorders 



N 



