OBSERVATIONS ON STERCORAL COLIC. 563 
and antimony in variable doses, as described in the following 
cases. 
Having been in practice about twenty years, and having had 
frequent opportunities of observing this disease, I am assured 
that the emetic tartar is the most constantly and rapidly effica¬ 
cious in removing a stercoral concretion. I would almost call it 
a specific in these cases. 
CASE I. 
An entire horse, six years old, had occasionally, for several 
days, light colicky pains, with loss of appetite. They had given 
him some injections ; and on the seventh day they brought him 
to me. 
He could scarcely walk, on account of the extraordinary swell¬ 
ing of the belly. The respiratory movements were short and 
spasmodic; the pulse small and irregular; the pupils dilated; 
the extremities cold. When placed in the stable, he stood with 
his legs straddling; the head extended; and the breathing la¬ 
borious. 
Prognosis .—Death approaching; in fact, the animal died some 
hours afterwards in great agony. 
Post-mortem examination .—The different splanchnic cavities 
offered nothing particular. The mucous membrane of a part of 
the colon presented a gangrenous appearance, and that intestine 
contained, in one of its cells, a mass of hard stercoral matter, 
of a round form, and from about twenty-one inches to two feet 
in circumference. It was composed of unmasticated meat, and 
half-digested grassy matter. 
CASE II. 
I was called to attend on a horse seven* years old, which, dur¬ 
ing the last twelve hours, had done nothing but lie down and 
get up again, looking at his flank from time to time. 
The appetite was quite gone. 
Recognizing all the characters of stercoral colic, I made them 
take the horse to mv establishment, and I submitted him durins: 
four or five days to a soothing regimen ; giving him warm mu¬ 
cilaginous drinks and emollient injections, &c., but without any 
benefit. I then administered seventy-two grains of the emetic, 
which produced a salutary crisis, and some days afterwards the 
cure was complete. 
CASE III, 
Eight or ten months afterwards, they brought the same horse 
to me, attacked, as they supposed, by the same disease. He 
