MEDICINAL TREATMENT OF "COLICS" 133 



gripe but allays the pain in 15 to 20 minutes as though 

 it were some powerful anodyne, yet acting as a 

 cathartic. 



While physostigmine is slower than arecoline, it is verj 

 much more thorough, usually causing copious defeca- 

 tion seven to a dozen times during the first hour of 

 its action and five or six defecations during the second 

 hour, b}' which time any griping it may have caused 

 will have ceased, although catharsis continues for 

 from two to four hours longer; resulting in as com- 

 plete an unloading of the intestine as can be secured 

 from a full purgative dose of aloes. 



Unlike arecoline, which is emphatically contraindiced, 

 physostigmine may be given in gastric flatulence, how- 

 ever, neither of these agents should ever be given to 

 a horse suffering from "heaves" if it can be avoided, 

 though if imperative it may be administered to such 

 patients by breaking up the regular dose into three 

 or four doses, given fifteen to twenty minutes apart. 

 Should this, so aggravate the heaves as to make death 

 from dyspnoea imminent, its effects on the bronchi 

 can be quickly checked by the administration hypoder- 

 matically of two drams of fluid extract of stramonium 

 diluted with one ounce of water, or by one-fourth to 

 one-half grain atropine sulphate, I prefer the stramo- 

 nium to overcome this spasm of the bronchioles so disas- 

 trous in animals suffering from heaves, because of its 

 more lasting effect. 



An hour after the first dose of the antidote, a second 

 dose may have to be administered, oral admin- 

 istration will usually suffice for the second and third 

 doses, should they be necessary. In using eserine or 



