242 THE COMMON COLICS OF THE HORSE 



conditions giving rise to it are small in. potency or 

 seriousness, and are quickly antagonized by a sharp, 

 quick effort on the part of the bowel, the painful mani- 

 festation of which we term ' spasmodic colic' The very 

 fact of the cause not being a serious one allows a sedative 

 to be given. The cause of the mischief is removed by 

 the bowel, while the sedative dulls the outward manifesta- 

 tion of the pain. In this case the bowels act in spite of 

 the sedative. When the cause is a serious one, then this 

 does not apply. The bowel then, hindered in its actions 

 by the administration of the anodyne, fails to act as in 

 the simpler case, and an obstinate condition of intestinal 

 stasis is bound to result. As we cannot always say at 

 the outset of a case whether or no the cause is a simple 

 one, then sedatives had better be withheld entirely. 



Having thus disposed of the value of sedatives in 

 simple spasm — which, after all, is the main argument to 

 be advanced in their favour — we come to several circum- 

 stances that absolutely negative their use in other forms 

 of colic. Before an assembly of practical men I need 

 not dwell over them long. We all know the enormous 

 length of the horse's intestines and the large masses of 

 food they are called upon to deal with. We know that 

 the amount of nutritive material abstracted from the 

 large masses of food taken in is comparatively small, 

 and that, therefore, the great bulk of the indigestible 

 matter has to be kept on the move towards its exit from 

 the body, in order to make room for further supplies. 

 This brings us to the known fact that the horse requires 

 to pass eight to ten or twelve motions daily to maintain 

 his health, and that stoppage of his peristaltic action for 

 twenty-four hours is about equivalent to something like 

 eight to ten days in man. 



This, if I may be allowed to mention what I have 



