118 THEORY AND PRACTICE 



rupture and the mucosa bulging outside the wall, then the rupture 

 causes the death. 



Treatment. — To begin with all cases of rupture are fatal — 

 whether the rupture is partial or complete. But seeing that the 

 symptoms of rupture are not very diagnostic, the doctor must 

 continue the case right up to the end. Treat the case for acute 

 gastric indigestion. 



Occasionally at post mortem, holes will be found in the wall 

 of the stomach, varying from the size of a dime to a dollar. A 

 horse dying in the city which recently has come in from the 

 country will always have bots. To these some attribute the 

 cause of the holes, and it is also common to refer the cause of 

 colic to bots — men say that the horse has the "bots." This is 

 wrong; the bots are not the cause of colic, or of the perforated 

 condition of the stomach as found post mortem. The bots may 

 cause gastritis by irritating the stomach mucosa or they may 

 become so numerous as to make an obstruction when they let go, 

 the only two conditions in which they can be responsible for any 

 lesion. The real cause of the holes in the stomach is this : They 

 occur in a digested condition of the wall. In such a case the 

 animal has probably been in a clover patch where in half an 

 hour be can eat enough clover to blow himself up like a balloon ! 

 He dies, and if the post mortem is delayed 4 or 5 hours, the 

 stomach will become digested in spots and patches, and warm 

 weather will aggravate the condition. The abundance of the gas- 

 tric juice which was present at the time of death digests the 

 stomach wall in patches. This is known as post mortem diges- 

 tion. 



CONSTIPATION. 



Definition. — Constipation is a condition of the bowels in 

 which the feces are unnaturally retained, or if ejected, are scanty, 

 hard and dry. It is not usually a serious matter, but it occa- 

 sionally leads to death through other developments. The large 

 intestine is the part involved ; constipation usually occurs in the 

 floating colon or rectum. 



Etiology. — The causal factors are three : 



