CONSTIPATION. 
693 
and water. I endeavoured for two or three days to support him 
with nutritious enemas, and, after this, allowed him to lap a little 
broth or thin gruel. An healthy action was soon reinstated ; the 
dog daily began to improve, until at length he was convalescent, 
leaving no traces of the wreck behind him. The bone measured 
in length 34 inches, and 2 inches at its base : it is the superior 
extremity of the femur of a sheep. 
CONSTIPATION. 
By William Percivall, M.R.C.S . , Veterinary Surgeon 
First Life Guards. 
29 th Oct. 1843. — Captain R — ’s first charger, a horse for which 
he has refused £350, was seized, about ten o’clock in the morn- 
ing, with symptoms of uneasiness, indicating pain in his bowels. 
He lay down and rolled, and repeated this more than once ; and, 
in consequence, the groom took him out for exercise. 
11 o’clock . — Being unrelieved after his exercise, my assistant 
was sent for to him. The case, to him, appearing evidently one 
of “ gripes,” he administered without delay an antispasmodic 
ball, and ordered him out, a second time, for exercise. After 
another exercise, a quarter of an hour in duration, no relief being 
obtained, the horse was removed into an infirmary-box, distant 
about a quarter of a mile. 
About half-past 11 o’clock I saw him. I was told by the 
groom he had passed dung early in the morning, and again, 
sparingly, at ten o’clock ; but not since. He was now, loose in 
the box, pawing occasionally, shaking his tail, looking about for 
places to lie down upon, and would have lain down had we not 
prevented him. In fact, he had the ordinary symptoms of cholic, 
with a small, quick, threaddy pulse, and a countenance betray- 
ing pain, but not of a sharp character. Altogether I did not 
think the case was one that demanded blood-letting, and there- 
fore, for the present, ordered my usual antispasmodic draught, 
composed of compound decoction of aloes (Barbadoes) with the 
addition of tincture of opium and the spirit of nitrous aether; also 
a simple enema. After the drench had been administered, and 
before the enema was given, he passed dung again, about equal 
in quantity and similar in other respects to an ordinary evacua- 
tion. The injection brought away no dung. I ordered him out 
again, after this was done, to take walking exercise for about half 
VOL. xvi. 5 A 
