THE STOMACH AND INTESTINES 169 



sometimes do between the fits of pain), may occur, the 

 presence of food decidedl}- aggravating the pain. Eventually, 

 if no relief is given, excessive prostration ensues, and the 

 patient dies. 



Treatment.— MedicimX agents should be resorted to first, 

 unless a certain diagnosis has been made which makes this 

 course to be considered useless. If worms or some foreign 

 body be suspected in the stomach, a dose of apomorphine 

 should be given to cause vomition and an attempt to get rid 

 of the cause of the irritation. Otherwise hot flannels or 

 compresses covered with mackintosh cloths should be apphed 

 externally, and an enema, together with medicinal agents 

 (ether, ammonia, turpentine, opium, chlorodyne, bismuth, 

 or castor-oil, etc., depending upon what the diagnosis has 

 been) given by the mouth. Should relief not be aff'orded 

 by these within three or four hours, and the abdomen is still 

 much distended, the stomach or intestine may be punctured 

 (see p. 171) ; failing ease from this, an exploratory laparotomy 

 (see p. 158) should certainly be done without further delay. 

 Even if no possible cause for the colic is found, the operator 

 need not despair of a successful issue ; for in a number of 

 cases the opening of the abdomen alone has caused relief 

 from vomiting and violent pain,i and, so far as the operation 

 itself is concerned, no great alarm need be felt if strict 

 attention has been paid to antiseptic precautions. Peritonitis, 

 that bugbear of old-fashioned surgery, is, comparatively 

 speaking, a rare sequel to laparotomy performed under 

 antiseptic precautions, even when dogs and cats are the 

 patients. - 



Five consecutive cases upon the result of which the above assertion was 

 first made are worth briefly recording. In each patient there was more 

 or less acute abdominal pain, the history obtainable being either none at 

 all or else of a swallowed foreign body. 



^ Joicnial of Comparative Patliology, vol. xii., p. 259. 

 ' Vctcrinaiy Record, vol. xiii., p- 142. 



