ACCUMULATION OF INGESTA RESULTING IN DEATH. 691 
1 repeated the aloetic draught. He now seemed tolerably 
easy, had a regular pulse, and showed a disposition to take 
food, but would drink but little. 
On Friday and Saturday he purged, but the bowels did 
not appear to act so regularly as could be desired ; I con- 
tented myself, however, by ordering him to be kept on 
a mash diet. 
On the following Monday I was again summoned to see 
him, the messenger stating that he was taken much worse; 
I went directly, and found him wandering about the yard in 
great pain. He was bathed with perspiration, and was strain- 
ing violently to void his faeces, but nothing came from him. 
I passed my hand up the rectum and found it empty; I 
could, however, distinctly feel a hardened mass of faeculent 
matter in the large intestines. I felt satisfied that it was not a 
calculus, from its giving way under the pressure of my fingers. 
The general symptoms of the patient led me to believe that 
it was a hopeless case, and I reported this to the owners. He 
kept wandering about the yard for some time, and then went 
into the stable and fell down. He lay straining so violently 
as to force out the rectum, soon after which he died. 
Autopsy . — Stomach normal in its structure; its contents 
fluid. Caecum and colon much inflamed; and in addition, 
the caecum was crammed with food, but which was in a pul- 
taceous state. The distension of the viscus extended to its 
apex, which was equally filled. 
The colon also contained a great deal of food, but there 
was no unpleasant smell from it, nor did it appear to have 
lain there long. 
The rectum was ruptured ; this I think was done with the 
violent straining. 
All the rest of the viscera were healthy. 
Remarks . — I have opened several horses that have died of 
strangulation or inflammation of the bowels, and have invari- 
ably found the colon in particular filled with hardened ingesta, 
differing essentially from this horse. I never saw a horse 
whose food was in the same pultaceous state that it was in 
this. 
The patient was a very aged horse, and had been attacked 
in a similar manner about two months before, but which 
yielded to an aloetic draught and enemas. 
Could it be that the muscular coat of the caecum was 
unable to act on the contents of the bowel, from its dis- 
tension ; or was it from the different nature of its contents, 
these being usually the more fluid parts of the ingesta, that 
its loss of power was produced? 
