THROMBO-EMBOLIC COLICS. 



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djspnœa which may lead to asphyxia. The animals have attacks 

 of violent colic, they neigh from paixi and take abnormal positions, 

 especially that similar to the sitting position of the dog. They 

 sweat profusely, the respiration is snoring, and at times we hear a 

 slight abortive cough. When a portion of the intestine has pene- 

 trated into the pectoral cavity, percussion of the thorax often gives 

 a very clear tympanic sound, and on auscultation we perceive bor- 

 borygmi replacing the respiratory murmur, which has disappeared 

 up to a certain height. These latter symptoms are sufficient to 

 confirm the diagnosis ; they are wanting when the laceration has 

 not been followed by a hernia, or when it is not voluminous, or, 

 again, when it occupies the floor of the chest. 



The course of the phenomena provoked by the tearing of the 

 diaphragm is ordinarily very rapid. Some animals apparently 

 recover after having been affected by remittent colics for several 

 weeks ; in others the colics reappear interruptedly and at intervals 

 more or less close ; in others, again, they are produced by the 

 slightest efforts, especially by the descent of a hill ; and some 

 no longer daring to lie clown. Within a variable time dyspnœa 

 becomes persistent and the patients are overcome by marasmus. 



Thrombo-embolic Colics. 



History. For more than half a century veterinarians considered 

 verminous aneurisms of the greater mesenteric artery as a deter- 

 mining cause of colics. Rigot (1829), and Schutt (1835) noticed 

 these lesions in horses that had died from colics ; Bruckmuller 

 (1852) very clearly proves verminous aneurism to be the cause of 

 numerous colics; Prehr (1855) relates a case of obliteration of the 

 first mesenteric artery; H. Bouley (1856) considered the bloody 

 excrements and intermittent colics as symptoms indicating arterial 

 obliteration. Kohne (1861), in a case observed by him, thought 

 that obstruction of the greater mesenteric artery induced as a conse- 

 quence paresis of the large intestine, and especially of the csecum ; 

 Hahn (1862) ascribes to aneurism of the greater mesenteric some 

 intermittent colics detected in a horse; Cornevin (1869) describes 

 a good case of colic provoked by the obliteration of the arteries of 

 the intestine and the caecum. 



This brief historical sketch shows that the relation of cause and 

 effect existing between aneurism of the mesenteric trunk and cer- 



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