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A TREATISE ON ELEPHANTS. 
Intestinal Obstruction or Stoppage of the Bowels. 
Causes. — Collection of food and blocking of the bowel, or a twist 
of the gut. 
When elephants are left entirely to their keepers it is not 
uncommon for them to feed the animals entirely on branches of trees, 
being too lazy to cut grass for them. Some barks are very 
astringent and contain a large amount of woody fibre with a small 
amount of sap, which is difficult to pass along the bowel, and tends 
to collect and eventually produce stoppage. 
A surfeit of grain, especially in animals not usually allowed any, 
may also provoke this condition. 
Symptoms. — Restlessness, off feed, distended abdomen, severe 
continued pain, marked constipation, often a total absence of passage 
of wind or dung. If not quickly relieved, the symptoms become 
aggravated, distension and pain grow worse, severe fever sets in and 
death may ensue rapidly. 
Treatment. — Avoid purgatives which will only aggravate the 
condition, also sedatives like opium, ganja, etc. The following may 
be tried, namely, extract of belladonna 2 drachms mixed with 
jaggery. This may be repeated in four or five hours, or oil of 
turpentine 4 ounces beaten up with some bicarbonate of soda, 
3 ounces of aromatic spirits of ammonia in a pint of linseed oil. 
Some aromatic such as a few drops of oil of aniseed may be added to 
mask the taste. Powdered nux vomica in a full dose is recommended 
up to one ounce. In less acute cases enemas are most beneficial. 
The rectum should be emptied by hand, after which copious enemas 
of soap and hot water (at a temperature which will bear the hand 
comfortably) to which 2 to 3 ounces of oil of turpentine is added 
should be thrown up, and repeated without the turpentine every 
hour or so till relieved. If the obstruction is relieved, every care 
with regard to food must be observed as laid down under Severe 
diarrhoea." 
Cases of intestinal obstruction are always difficult to diagnose, 
and are only too often fatal. Twist of the bowel and intussusception, 
i.e., a portion of the gut having become telescoped within the 
succeeding portion, have been observed. The following extract 
records a case of the latter : — 
Intussusception in an Elephant. 
''The patient, a male elephant, aged five years, was a passenger 
on board the s.s. Pegu, which left Rangoon for Liverpool on March 
29, 1903. 
