124 COLICS AND THEIR TREATMENT 



arecoline where the patient is afflicted with heaves, it 

 naturally is advisable that the veterinarian watch his 

 patient until danger has passed. 



All quick-acting cathartics are also more or less liable 

 to produce abortion in pregnant animals; this is espec- 

 ially true if they be near full term. 



SPECIFIC CONSIDERATION OF COLICS 



Without reference to the symptoms of the various 

 forms of colic, which are discussed at length in other 

 articles in this book, we may take up a discussion of their 

 treatment as follows : 



Gastric Flatulence 



Synonyms : Gastric tympany, gastrectasis, acute in- 

 digestion. 



The time was, and that during my time, when a case 

 of gastric flatulence meant a six or eight-hour job for 

 the veterinarian, provided the patient survived that long, 

 but thanks to the perfection of the stomach tube, or to 

 the discovery that a capsule of salicylic acid, preferably 

 but not necessarily, augmented by a hypodermatic injec- 

 tion of physostigmine sulphate will relieve this condition, 

 thirty to sixty minutes is about the time it now requires 

 to treat such cases. 



Tapping the stomach by means of an extra long tro- 

 car and canula was tried by Dr. Joseph Hughes some 

 15 or 18 years ago, but was discarded as being dan- 

 gerous and inefficient. 



The writer had a stomach tube made to order in Eng- 

 land twenty-one years ago but being made of the same 



