SUBACUTE OBSTRUCTION OF THE DOUBLE COLON 89 



and his system responds readily to the action of 

 stimulants, so long may a favourable prognosis be in- 

 dulged in, and the medical attendant need not necessarily 

 be alarmed at the continuance of pains spread over a 

 period of three or four days. In fact, the comparative 

 cessation of pains, if unaccompanied by an action of the 

 bowels, may sooner be regarded as an unfavourable sign. 

 The time at which the circumstances look their blackest, 

 when the pains are most severe, and the uninitiated 

 lookers-on the most anxious, is often the turning-point in 

 the case, and it is at such moments that I would carefully 

 caution the worried veterinarian to rigorously hold him- 

 self in check, and arbitrarily abstain from the exhibition 

 of sedatives. Could he but bring himself to do so in a few 

 successive cases, he would soon come to look upon the 

 pain, distressing to witness no doubt, as only a necessary 

 factor towards a complete and rapid resolution, and would 

 be able, even in that anxious time, to hold out to the 

 solicitous owner still further hopes of a near recovery. 



Treatment. — My ideas concerning this are somewhat 

 unorthodox. I cannot, therefore, detail my own without 

 first giving that more generally practised. Probably the 

 most common of all is the administration of an aloetic 

 ball, the dose varying from 5 to 7 or 8 drachms, according 

 to the size and age of the animal. Those who follow 

 this usually administer at the same time antispasmodics 

 and anodynes. Others there are who discard the aloes> 

 and rely simply upon the exhibition of the anodynes. 



For the aloes it is said that the colic in this case is 

 due to a collection of irritating food in the intestine, and 

 that the rational treatment is the administration of a 

 purgative to remove the offending substance. 



The antispasmodics and anodynes are exhibited 

 for the relief of spasm. Those who so treat their cases 



