APPENDIX 357 



is labouring under a misapprehension, the practitioner 

 will have the great bulk of his cases suffer, and not the 

 comparatively few. The very thing we are called upon 

 to treat in these cases is a lethargic, torpid condition of 

 the bowel, and, unless we are homoeopaths, believing in 

 the dictum similia similihus cttrantur (let likes be treated 

 by likes), we cannot, with any regard for logic, administer 

 an anodyne. 



Those who have met with them will have noticed that 

 obstructions confined to the single colon give rise to a 

 condition of the bowel even more obstinately torpid than 

 that arising from a like affection of the larger bowel, 

 in which case a sedative is even more strongly contra- 

 indicated still. 



In justice to those who give anodynes in these cases, 

 it is only fair to add that they administer at the same 

 time a drastic purgative in the shape of aloes. They 

 say in support of their treatment that an anodyne will 

 stay the pains while the purgative removes the cause — 

 viz., the obstruction. In so believing they lull them- 

 selves into a state of false security. The anodyne, in 

 addition to staying the pain, stays the action of the aloes 

 and the bowels. In this way the cause is still retained, 

 and the case prolonged or even aggravated. 



Gastric tympany I have already touched on, and have 

 pointed out that the arrangement and anatomy of the 

 horse's stomach, when it is filling with gas, will not allow 

 of any agent being given that will tend to stay the normal 

 movements of the intestines. 



In tympanites confined to the intestines themselves 

 sedatives are just as dangerous. This is another form of 

 colic due to the ingestion of irritating and fermenting 

 foods, this time unaccompanied by a relieving purge. 

 The volume of gas distends the intestine to a point of 



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