SUBACUTE OBSTRUCTION OF THE DOUBLE COLON 99 



habit of prescribing for the horse, they are not acquainted 

 with his internal anatomy, and they certainly are not 

 largely experienced in the action of drugs upon him. 

 That chloral is not an anodyne in the strict sense of the 

 word I know. I know that it does not act as a sedative 

 to the periphery of sensory nerves. It acts, however, in 

 an indirect manner through the nerve-centres, and almost 

 invariably induces sleep. Compare the stretched-out, 

 comfortable sleep of the griped animal under the in- 

 fluence of chloral with the mad delirium so often seen 

 with opium, and one can no longer remain in doubt as to 

 the superiority of the former in treating equine colic. 



Here are a few of Mr. Hunting's remarks on the use 

 of sedatives in colic, and with them I must close. He 

 says : ' It was argued that in the human subject they 

 administered sedatives with the intention of alleviating 

 the pain, and when they had once stopped the spasm 

 there was no fear of impaction. After the spasm was 

 got rid of, that the normal condition of the bowels 

 would be resumed, and the indigestion pass away. 

 Personally, he (Mr. Hunting) believed that, so far as the 

 horse was concerned, that was arguing upside down. 

 He held that the impacted food was the cause of the 

 spasm or pain, and that the proper thing to do was to 

 remove the cause, even if they inflicted a little more pain. 

 He could say honestly and fairly that he had had a 

 greater number of recoveries under the aperient and 

 stimulant treatment than under the sedative treatment 

 alone.' 



I can emphatically endorse all that Mr. Hunting says 

 there. The same good results immediately followed 

 when I refrained from giving sedatives. I am able, 

 moreover, to assure the practitioner that the number of 

 his successful cases would further increase if he also 



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