144 
TWO CASES OF CONCRETION IN THE INTES¬ 
TINES OF HORSES. 
By Mr. J oseph Trump, Merthyr , Glamorgan. 
Nov. 3, 1829. — I was called on at six o’clock in the morning 
to attend a case of gripes in a horse, the property of the Peny- 
darran Iron Company. The animal was down, and unable to 
rise. I was told that he had had a drink for gripes. I imme¬ 
diately opened the j ugular, but very little blood flowed. The horse 
appeared to be making efforts to void dung, but on searching 
the rectum I found only four or five pellets of faeces in a natural 
state. I went quickly for my clystering apparatus ; but on my 
return the horse was dead. He was feeding, and appeared per¬ 
fectly well at four the same morning, and died by eight. I 
opened him immediately, and observed a great quantity of dung 
in the cavity of the abdomen. On searching for the rupture, I 
found that the smallest concretion, which measures in circum¬ 
ference nine and a half inches, had broken through the rectum 
and killed the horse. There was much inflammation about the 
ruptured part, with the peritoneum slightly inflamed. The horse- 
keepers informed me that the symptoms were decidedly those of 
gripes. 
On the 24th, same month, 1 was requested to attend a mare in 
gripes at the same stables. She had been taken to her labour 
in the colliery, but was suddenly seized with illness, and brought 
back between nine and ten in the morning. She was restless; 
laid down and rolled, and got up again; no increase of pulse or 
coldness of extremities ; she had intervals of perfect ease; and, in 
fact, I imagined it to be a case of cholic, and administered the 
usual medicine, and ordered ten minutes’ walking. An hour 
afterwards, she not being relieved, I bled her; applied stimulants 
to the abdomen, and from being told that she had not dunged for 
some time, I dissolved a physic ball, being the only thing at hand, 
in about five quarts of warm water, and injected it. It was not 
retained long, and I left her for about an hour. On my return I 
found her quiet, the pulse natural, and the extremities warm ; 
but I observed that the mare looked large, and the vulva 
slightly swollen; and I was informed she was about five months 
gone with foal. I then imagined another cause for the spasms. 
She was an excellent worker, and might have been put to some 
heavy weight, and thereby had been injured or strained. The 
symptoms, however, were not of that nature to warrant an extrac- 
