SURGICAL TREATMENT OF COLICS 69 



short and the nostrils widely dilated. Sometimes there 

 is a grunt heard during the exhalations, particularly 

 noticeable while the patient is recumbent. The absence 

 of abdominal distention to account for this distressing 

 respiration is in fact pathognonomic when coupled with 

 the above symptoms. There may be some bloating of 

 the right flank that becomes more pronounced as the 

 disease progresses, but the bloating is never sufficient to 

 account for the grave condition of the patient and only 

 momentary relief is afforded when it is evacuated with 

 the trocar and canula. 



Treatment. — Allowed to run its course or under the 

 ordinary medical treatment usually administered for col- 

 ics, impaction of the stomach runs rapidly toward a fatal 

 ending. Eserine, by further exhausting the stomach in 

 the futile contractions to expel its contents, is always 

 disastrous in impaction of the stomach and the same ap- 

 plies to the other powerful drugs resorted to for serious 

 colics. Oil and purgatives afford no relief whatever. 



The only remedy I have found to turn these fatal cases 

 toward recovery is to patiently liquify the impacted mass 

 and endeavor to aspirate it out through the tube. The 

 operation requires patience, as this feat cannot be ac- 

 complished immediately. The injections of two or three 

 gallons of water into the already full stomach may ac- 

 tually increase the patient's agony, but after a time when 

 the water has had time to distribute itself through the 

 mass, the injection of additional quantities of water will 

 begin to bring out food particles in the reflux and finally, 

 as the softening process continues, more will flow out. 

 After a patient attempt without success a second or third 



