56 PRIVATE PRESCRIPTIONS 
ee ee 
contraction ot the muscular coats of the stomach and 4) 
intestines. | 
Cause—Often the cause is exercising a horse until he is 
warm and allowing him to cool too quickly. Sometimes a 
horse is exercised until he is very warm, and as a matter 
of fact he is very thirsty, then under these circumstances 
he drinks excessively if permitted to do so; this causes a 
sudden contraction of the muscles of the stcmzch, and 
Spasmodic Colic is the result. 
HOW TO KNOW IT. 
In the first stage the patient will appear uneasy and will 
be noticed looking around; he will stand first upon one 
foot and then upon the othe, quit his feed if eating and 
walk around as though he was going to lay down. In the 
second stage he drops down suddenly showing signs of the 
great pain he is in; he rolls very violently and gets up and 
down very often. There will be periods of reliefi n which 
the horse will be quite free from pain, but they are fleet- 
ing. A horse exercises hlmself more with this disease 
than with any other. When symptoms have been noted 
diagnosis can be verified by the pulse. We find two hard 
beats of it and then a fluttering fluctuation. When this is 
found we can be sure of Spasmodic Colic, for no other 
disease presents this fluctuation of the pulse. We can not 
always go by the way a horse acts, for where there is any 
pain (no matter as to its character) in either stomach or 
bowels, he will roll more or less. 
