284 THE COMMON COLICS OF THE HORSE 



bands — is at once rendered of no account by the paralyzing 

 influence of the sedative. These cases alone furnish 

 another and a weighty argument in favour of the general 

 adoption of a stimulant treatment in cases of equine colic. 

 Certainly here it seems to me that to blindly administer 

 the sedative is as wrong as it is possible to be. Better, 

 surely, to administer stimulants in order to conserve the 

 animal's fast-failing energies, and then to make some 

 such attempt at mechanical reduction as we shall now 

 describe. 



According to Moller^ it was Jelkmann, who at the 

 National Science Congress at Bremen in 1890, first drew 

 attention to the manual reduction of torsions of the colon. 

 Moller himself, after repeated experiments on the dead 

 subject in the standmg position, speaks of the operation 

 in very favourable terms, and quotes cases which clearly 

 enough convey the fact that torsion of the colon is not 

 only thus to be treated, but is to be treated successfully. 

 Cadeac, in vol. ii. of his ' Pathologie Interne,' also refers to 

 the operation, but appears to be relying on the descriptions 

 of Jelkmann and Moller rather than quoting experiences 

 of his own. The point, however, is that he agrees as to 

 the possibility of the operation being successful. 



Dollar's translation of Moller, in which this operation 

 is discussed and described, has been in circulation now 

 for close on two decades. During that time I do not 

 remember to have seen a report of a case by an English 

 veterinarian in which Jelkmann's operation has been 

 successfully performed. If such has been published, then 

 I have missed it. Anyhow, the point to which I wish to 

 draw attention is that references to this operation, if any, 

 have certainly been but few. This is not surprising 

 when one considers the following facts : (i) That diag- 



1 Moller, ' Operative Veterinary Surgery,' translation by Dollar 



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